Gale-force winds and storms have barrelled through northern Europe, claiming more lives, causing travel mayhem, shutting schools, and cutting power to hundreds of thousands in freezing temperatures. 

Some 50 flights were cancelled at London’s Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers. Air travel was disrupted across Europe from the Czech Republic to Moscow, where over 300 flights were cancelled at four airports serving the Russian capital. 

Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England. 

Nearly 50,000 homes in England and Wales were still without power on Friday afternoon, according to the National Grid energy provider, most of them in southwest England. 

Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight. It closed more than 250 schools across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break. 

In France, Goretti cut power to some 320,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said. 

Cars and trams move through slow traffic during snowfall in Vienna, Austria. Photo / Joe Klamar, AFP 

Overnight, gusts of up to 216km/h were registered in France’s northwestern Manche region, authorities said. 

The winds felled trees, with at least one crashing on homes in France’s Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said. 

Gusts of up to 160km/h lashed England and Wales, with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of “very large waves” bringing “dangerous conditions to coastal areas”. 

It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30cm in some areas. 

‘Hurricane-force’ winds 

More than 13 people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe. 

The latest were in Bavaria, southern Germany, where a road accident linked to the storms killed two people Friday morning, police said. 

A worker secures the area around a fallen tree on a water borehole, following the passage of the storm Goretti, in Saint-Gabriel-Brecy, near Martragny, northwestern France. Photo / Lou Benoist, AFP 

Also in Bavaria, a 52-year-old man died on Thursday after veering off the road and crashing into a tree while driving round a bend, local police said. 

Turkish media reported five deaths: two were killed in separate accidents involving dislodged roof tiles, a Syrian man died when a wall fell on him, a construction worker was swept into the Aegean Sea, and a pensioner fell off a roof. 

Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions. 

Giant waves crashed over harbour walls across France’s far northwest overnight and, as the storm moved east, it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports, including Dieppe. 

Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by Storm Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services cancelled. 

Flights were cancelled or postponed at Hamburg airport while several main roads were paralysed, including some hundreds of miles to the south in the Frankfurt region. 

The German weather service warned of “hurricane-force” winds in areas on the North Sea as well as in the southwest, and up to 15cm of snow in parts of the country on Friday. 

Two Bundesliga football matches between FC Saint Pauli and RB Leipzig and Werder Bremen and TSG Hoffenheim scheduled for Saturday have been cancelled because of the current weather conditions, the German Football League (DFL) announced. 

Carmaker Volkswagen shut its factory at Emden in northeastern Germany, where about 8000 people work. The country’s rail operator Deutsche Bahn said traffic would resume gradually through Saturday. 

Floodwaters receding 

Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and around 1000 homes were without electricity in Romania. 

But floodwaters were receding in parts of the Balkans on Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people. 

In Albania, one of the hardest-hit in the region, Prime Minister Edi Rama said authorities were beginning to count the cost of flooding after hundreds of homes were inundated, mainly in the south. 

Warnings of icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines. 

– Agence France-Presse