Three people died in Scotland and England, families were trapped in their flooded homes and flooding and flooding gripped cities in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and northern Germany due to an extratropical cyclone that Europeans called Babet.
Storm Babet moved east after hitting Ireland and advancing into Scandinavia. The Met Office, Britain’s weather service, has issued a rare red severe weather warning for parts of eastern Scotland, with a serious warning of “exceptional rainfall” of up to 500mm.
Police say the body of a 57yearold woman was found after she was swept into a river in Angus County on Thursday afternoon. A second person died on Thursday evening, also in Angus, after a falling tree hit a van, killing the 56yearold driver.
A 60yearold man died on Friday after water swept away a street in Cleobury Mortimer in Shropshire, central England, police said. Authorities in southern Ireland’s County Cork, where hundreds of homes and businesses were inundated earlier this week, described the flooding as the worst in at least 30 years.
A community hospital for older people had to be evacuated in the town of Midleton, Cork, where the main street was under up to a meter of water. As the storm hit Scotland on Friday, Scottish leader Humza Yousaf warned he could not “emphasize how dangerous” the conditions were, particularly in the northeastern town of Brechin.
Emergency services struggled to reach trapped residents but were hampered by strong currents and two meter high flooding. “About half of October’s average monthly rainfall is expected to fall in hours of exceptional rainfall,” Yousaf said.
“It’s absolutely terrible. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said local councilor Jill Scott, adding that hundreds of homes were flooded. “People are trapped and some were trapped there for hours. “The boats try to get to them but they can’t because the current is too strong. It’s like a river,” she added.
Huge waves crash into the harbor at Stonehaven on the coast of Scotland, amid high winds and torrential rain caused by Storm Babet | ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/METSUL METEOROLOGY
People photograph huge Baltic Sea waves crashing into a lighthouse in Germany. The storm caused streets and coastal areas on the Baltic Sea coast to be inundated by floodwaters. | GEORGE MORITZ/DPA/AFP/METSUL METEOROLOGY
A couple and their dog are rescued by a coastguard team from a flooded street in Brechin, northeast Scotland, as Storm Babet hit the country with exceptional rain and wind. | ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP/METSUL METEOROLOGY
Firefighters and the Coast Guard began evacuating Angus residents on Thursday, knocking on doors and urging people to leave. More than 350 homes in Angus have been contacted and residents have been advised to evacuate,” an Angus Council spokesperson said. “Parts of Angus are only accessible by boat,” he added.
Meanwhile, train services in the far south and central England were severely affected due to heavy rain and strong winds. Some lines in northwest England and north Wales have come to a complete standstill due to flooding, rail officials said.
People cross a flooded street in Flensburg, northern Germany, as Storm Babet caused devastating damage across several countries in northern Europe. | AXEL HEIMKEN/AFP/METSUL METEOROLOGY
The German city of Flensburg in the north of the country was one of the cities most affected by the passage of the extratropical cyclone Babet through northern Europe. | ALEX HEIMKEN/AFP/METSUL METEOROLOGY
Road signs in Soenderborg, Denmark, are almost submerged due to flooding caused by Storm Babet, which headed towards Scandinavia. | MADS CLAUS RASMUSSEN/RITZAU SCANPIX/AFP/METSUL METEOROLOGIA
According to the Energy Networks Association, around 10,000 homes in England were without power, while another 45,000 were reconnected. The Met Office has issued a series of less serious yellow warnings indicating adverse weather conditions such as flooding, heavy rain and strong winds across other parts of central and northern England.
“This is not normal autumn weather,” said Andy Page, chief meteorologist at the Met Office. “This is an exceptional event and we are likely to continue to experience significant impacts with the possibility of further flooding and property damage,” the engineer stressed.
Extratropical Cyclone Babet in Europe | ADAM PLATFORM
The weather system also hit other parts of northern Europe, particularly Denmark. The Danish Meteorological Institute posted on social media that it expected water levels to “exceed the 100year event mark in several places.”
Police in southern Denmark, the Danish region expected to be hardest hit, warned that several stretches of roads in lowlying areas were flooded and some trees had fallen. He also warned of a dike breach and urged people to leave Sandersvig Strand on the Jutland peninsula immediately.
In neighboring Sweden, forecasters warned of the risk of widespread flooding that could limit access to roads and railways along the Scandinavian country’s southern coast. The water level is expected to rise on Saturday, it said. A bridge near Norway’s secondlargest city was closed as a precaution, the Bergens Tidende newspaper reported. Ferry service in the area was suspended and air traffic was impacted, leading to delays and some cancellations.
In Germany, some streets and squares were flooded in the cities of Flensburg, Kiel and Wismar on the Baltic Sea coast. The fallen trees caused some disruption, including on a railway line. The ferry operator Scandlines has suspended operations on the RoedbyPuttgarden and GedserRostock routes between Denmark and Germany. On the German North Sea coast, strong winds had the opposite effect to flooding on the Baltic Sea coast, pushing the water further away at very low water levels.