BRITAIN: Six people, including three children, were killed in the UK by falling trees and debris yesterday as gale force winds of up to 60 m.p.h. caused chaos across Britain and an estimated €50 million of damage.
Two boys, one aged 10 and another aged about five, were struck on the head in separate incidents in Norfolk and Suffolk.
The elder boy died after a tree hit him in Costessey, on the outskirts of Norwich, as he walked in a wooded area. The younger child is understood to have been with his mother and dog when he was struck in Felixstowe.
Elsewhere in East Anglia, a middle-aged man from Whittington, near Downham Market, Norfolk, was hit by a falling tree in his back garden. He died en route to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn.
In the West Midlands, a 14-year-old girl was killed and her mother and sister were seriously injured when a large branch crushed their car on the A41, at Ternhill, near the family's home town in Market Drayton, Shropshire.
In mid-Wales, a man died on the A40 near Brecon when a large branch hit the roof of his car.
Dyfed Powys Police said the accident happened near the village of Bwlch as he was driving towards Crickhowell.
In Oxford, a 22-year-old woman was killed and her two sisters were injured when a tree fell on their silver mini-van in Gloucester Street, near the city's bus station.
The deaths came as sustained wind speeds of between 40 m.p.h. and 60 m.p.h., the equivalent of force eight and 10 on the Beaufort Scale, were recorded across many parts of the UK.
The highest recorded wind speed was a gust of 96.6 m.p.h. at Mumbles in Wales.
Among the more serious incidents was a 13-year-old boy, who fractured a leg after he was swept up into the air while flying a kite in Cambridge. - (PA)