The London Eyethe huge emblematic Ferris wheel of London, was closed on Friday and numerous flights and trains canceled due to Storm Eunice, which hit the United Kingdom and Ireland with great violence and put the north of the European continent on alert.
the south of England recorded record winds of up to 195 km per hourreported the British meteorological office, while on the English coast the storm raised violent waves and the streets of London were almost deserted.
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“I urge all Londoners to stay home, take no risks and do not travel unless absolutely essential,” Mayor Sadiq Khan said, warning that “extremely strong winds in the capital could cause falling debris and damage to buildings”, putting the lives of those outside at risk.
Dominating the city from the south bank of the river thameswhere the gusts blew strongly, the London Eye, the tallest Ferris wheel in Europe and the third largest in the world with its 135 meters high, remained closed for “visitor safety“.
🔴United Kingdom | Storm Eunice, with winds that can reach 180km/h, has forced the red alert to be activated and dozens of flights to be canceled
This is the worst storm in more than 30 years, according to meteorologists@SAlonsoEsparzacorrespondenthttps://t.co/MFBFHOkvUO pic.twitter.com/ovwjj0ZxFq
— Radio 5 (@radio5_rne) February 18, 2022
The British weather service had put the day before on red alert – the highest level – the south-west of England and south Wales, but on Friday morning it issued a rare second high alert, this time for the south-east of the country, which for the first time since this system began to be used in 2011 includes London.
Numerous flights were canceled at airports across the country and railway companies asked passengers to “don’t travel“. More than 70,000 homes were without electricity in England and some 80,000 in neighboring Ireland.
Authorities warned of the risk of severe flooding and “particularly high risk” of accidents on highways and numerous schools they remained closed pending a crisis meeting of the British government in the afternoon.
“We must all follow the advice and take precautions to keep ourselves safe,” tweeted Prime Minister Boris Johnson, while Secretary of State for Security Damian Hinds called on the population to “stay safe,” stressing that the army was ready to deal with the effects of Eunice, one of the most violent storms in three decades.
– Northern Europe on alert –
After hitting the UK, the storm is forecast to move towards Denmarkwhere it was decided that the trains circulate at a lower speed as a precaution and the Storebaelt bridge, one of the longest in the world, has to be closed almost certainly for most of the night, its operator warned.
In France, on Friday morning the storm was already causing waves of four meters in Brittany, according to Météo France, which put five departments on orange alert with wind gusts of up to 110km/h in the northwest, which could exceed 140km/h locally on the coast in the afternoon.
Also the French railway operator SNCF announced interruptions in its regional lines.
In Holland, The weather service issued a red alert on Friday. and hundreds of flights were cancelled, according to local media. The trains had to remain stopped in the afternoon.
In Belgium, the authorities have advised citizens to limit their movements as much as possible. Rail traffic is also interrupted and many schools have shortened their day.
In Germany, the trains were suspended in the northincluding Bremen and Hamburg for the second day in a row, according to Deutsche Bahn.
Eunice hits northern Europe after the continent has already been hit by heavy storms in recent days, such as Dudley which killed five people in Poland and Germany on Thursday.
Although the climate change increases and generally multiplies extreme phenomena, its impact is not so clear in the case of violent winds and storms (excluding tropical cyclones), the number of which varies greatly from one year to another.
The latest report from climate experts at the HIM-HER-IT (IPCC) published in August estimates, with a very low degree of certainty, that there may be an increase in storms in the northern hemisphere since the 1980s.
He also estimates that storm-related precipitation is likely to increasebut that their intensity, including wind speed, remains more or less the same.
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