MONTEMURLO (AFP) – At least 12 people were killed as Storm Ciaran battered Western Europe with record winds of up to 200 kilometres per hour (kph), causing travel mayhem with closed ports and flight and rail disruptions.
At least five people died in Tuscany, Italian authorities announced, reporting record rainfall and the declaration of a state of emergency.
Tuscany Governor Eugenio Giani said the five dead included an 85-year-old man who was found drowned on the ground floor of his house in Montemurlo, northwest of Florence.
“What happened tonight in Tuscany has a name: climate change,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Florence mayor Dario Nardella said the situation is critical in the city, as the level of the Arno River continued to rise.
Trees felled by gale-force winds caused most of the deaths in Europe. In the Belgian city of Ghent, a five-year-old Ukrainian boy and a 64-year-old woman were killed by falling branches.
Falling trees had earlier killed a lorry driver in his vehicle in northern France’s Aisne region, and French authorities also reported the death of a man who fell from his balcony in the port city of Le Havre.
A man in the Dutch town of Venray, a woman in central Madrid and a person in Germany also died.
Some 1.2 million French homes lost electricity as the storm lashed the northwest coast.
Almost 700,000 remained without power, according to network manager Enedis.
French President Emmanuel Macron was due to visit the storm-battered region of Brittany yesterday, the Elysee presidential palace said.
The storm interrupted rail, air and maritime traffic in Belgium where the port of Antwerp was closed and flights from Brussels were disrupted.
The wind gusts in the western Brittany region were exceptional and many absolute records have been broken, national weather service Meteo-France said on X.
The prefect for the local department said gusts as high as 207kph were recorded at Pointe du Raz on the tip of the northwest coast, while the port city of Brest saw winds hit 156kph.
