Storm Ciarán hit northern France with record winds of almost 200 km per hour, leaving one dead, while many areas of Spain and the south of England are under some type of warning this Thursday.
After the Babet storm a few days ago, Ciarán was propelled by a powerful jet stream that arrived from the Atlantic and unleashed heavy rains and hurricane winds that on Wednesday already caused serious flooding in Northern Ireland and that this Thursday is hitting the south of the United Kingdom, the northwest of France and Spain.
France is the country hardest hit by Ciarán, which has some streaks of Category 3 hurricane. The authorities speak of a dead driver and at least 16 injured, one of them seriously, 1,315 displaced, 1.2 million homes without electricity and transportation disruptions.
The deceased is the driver of a truck that was hit by a tree in the Aisne department, explained the French Transport Minister, Clément Beaune, in statements to the France Info radio station.
The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, indicated for his part that one person was seriously injured on a university campus in the city of Roubaix, bordering Belgium.
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Of the injured, seven are firefighters, who until early afternoon had carried out more than 3,500 interventions in the areas affected by the storm.
During the first part of the day, road traffic was prohibited in coastal departments of Brittany and the trucks could not move on the roads of that region.
Throughout the early morning and much of the morning of this Thursday, The meteorological services put three departments (Finistère, Côtes d’Armor and La Manche) on red alertthe maximum.
In the early afternoon, There were 23 departments in total on orange alert, both on the Atlantic coast and the two on the island of Corsica.
In addition, “1,315 people had to be displaced, especially from campsites and reception areas”, as well as from several homes in the city of Brest (Brittany, northwest) due to the fall of a crane, announced the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin.
Five regions in the northwest of France canceled all their regional trains on Thursday (Brittany, Normandy, Hauts-de-France, Centre-Loire Valley and Pays de la Loire). High-speed trains (TGV) were also suppressed on different routes such as Paris-Le Mans and Paris-Nantes.
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Two airports in Brittany, Brest and Quimper, were closed since Wednesday afternoon, and operations at Lille were also completely suspended until at least mid-afternoon. At Paris airports, delays accumulated due to the storm.
Enedis, an EDF subsidiary responsible for power lines, indicated that on Thursday morning there were up to 1.2 million homes without power supply. That figure had dropped to 980,000 by early afternoon. The company had mobilized 3,000 of its workers to deal with foreseeable breakdowns.
Last night, on the shores of Brittany, Gusts of up to 207 kilometers per hour were recorded at Cape Raz, in the Finistère department, or 156 km/h in Brest, the main city in the region. In neighboring Normandy, winds of between 150 and 170 kilometers per hour were measured.
On the coast, Météo France warned of the risk of strong waves, between six and eight meters on most of the Atlantic coast, and between eight and ten meters on Brittany.
Alert in Spain and the United Kingdom
All of Spain is on alert -except the Canary Islands- due to rain, gusts of wind of up to 110km/h and sea storms, with the highest incidence in Galicia, to the northwest, where there is a red warning for waves of 9 meters.
The emergency services of Asturias also recorded more than 70 incidents related to the powerful gusts of wind, most of them due to cuts in the road network due to falling trees, but they did not record any personal injuries.
The violent gusts of wind caused the death of a young woman in Madrid and injured three other people, and emergency services had to respond to thousands of incidents throughout the country.
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This Thursday, the storm continued its path towards England. In Cornwall (south), large waves driven by winds of 135 km/hour hit the coastand hundreds of schools across the region remained closed.
England had to suspend train services and in the county of Cornwall there are 7,000 homes without electricity due to torrential rains and strong winds.
On the English Channel island of Jersey, residents had to be evacuated to hotels overnight as wind gusts of up to 164 km/hour damaged homes, according to local media.
The authorities have asked the population to avoid driving in the coastal areas of southern England and try not to travel and work from home.
Hundreds of schools closed in the town of Southampton, on the Isle of Wight, in the county of Devon, as well as in East Sussex and Dorset, all in the south of England.
There are also life-threatening alerts in Scotland, where the winds are expected to reach this Friday.
While, In Belgium and the Netherlands, the orange alert was activated in coastal areas and Amsterdam Schiphol airport canceled hundreds of flights scheduled for this afternoon, while Rotterdam canceled some routes.
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The Netherlands also warned of powerful wind gusts of up to 100 km/h, so workers were advised to avoid traveling to work.
*With AFP and EFE
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