GERMANY: Germany began cleaning up yesterday after the worst autumn storm for 12 years had left at least 11 people dead and up to 50 people injured. Hurricane Jeanett brought gusts of up to 180 kms an hour on Sunday night, damaging buildings and uprooting trees.
The Allianz insurance company said it expected a surge in claims in coming days as homeowners and businesses assessed the damage left by the gale-force winds.
"It was a huge autumn storm. We expect to pay out about €80 million in claims," said a company spokesman in Munich.
Five people were killed by the storm in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. A 38-year-old man near the town of Hamm died when the wind destroyed the attic room in which he was sleeping. A 70-year-old pensioner was blown into a river and drowned near the city of Aachen.
Over 150,000 German fire-fighters were on duty over the weekend and responded to over 50,000 call-outs. Deutsche Bahn, the national rail company, said it had deployed over 2,000 workers to repair its rail network.
Another falling tree killed a woman in Switzerland, where the autumn storm brought spring temperatures of over 20 degrees on Sunday.
The storm claimed two lives and injured many more in Poland. One man was killed after driving into a fallen tree-trunk. Another was killed by a flying sheet of metal.