Death Toll 10 as Storm Batters Britain’s South
Winds gusting up to 90 m.p.h. and heavy rain pounded southern Britain on Friday, toppling trees, ripping down power lines and killing at least 10 people.
The storm sent ships scurrying for shelter and disrupted ferry service across the Irish Sea. Gale force winds halted all salvaging of the British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise, which capsized three weeks ago off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge, killing at least 134 people.
In southern England, power was out for thousands of homes. Dozens of roads were flooded and several large bridges closed in Wales.
Three men were killed and three were injured when a tree crashed on a van near Banstead, south of London, police said. A train smashed into a fallen tree outside a station in nearby Dormansland, and the trunk split in two and pierced the front car, seriously injuring one commuter and trapping four others.
Girl Crushed by Wall
A 16-year-old girl was crushed to death when wind toppled a wall at her school in Caldicot, south Wales, and a 20-year-old woman died when a wall was blown down on her in a north London street, police said.
A police sergeant helping to clear a road in Norfolk county in eastern England was killed by a falling tree.
A laborer was killed in a landslide on a construction site at Edington in western England.
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