13 Killed as Fierce Storms Batter Ireland, England
Thirteen people were killed Saturday as Ireland and England were lashed by gale force winds and torrential rain, police said.
The London Weather Center predicted that the worst was yet to come with the storms moving eastward from Ireland into Wales and western England.
Six Swiss tourists and an Irish teen-ager were killed when their van was crushed by an uprooted tree near Galway. Also in Galway, two men in a van were killed when a wall collapsed in the high winds and crushed them.
Two other drivers were killed by falling trees and in Limerick a man died when high winds fanned a chimney fire and set his house ablaze. Another man died when he was electrocuted by fallen wires.
Electricity was cut off around Britain and Ireland as power lines fell. Railway service was disrupted and police ordered several roads and bridges closed because of 100-m.p.h. winds.
Ferries across the Irish Sea were canceled, and the 65,000 residents of the Isle of Man between Britain and Ireland were isolated from the outside world when all ferries and planes were halted.
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