Heavy storm causes disruption 03/03/2008 00:00

On Saturday a storm caused squalls that reached 110 km per hour.

On a Saturday, a storm passed over Belgium,  with squalls of up to 110 km per hour. The tail ends of Emma caused mainly material damage. Fire departments all over the country received hundreds of emergency calls, mainly for uprooted trees and fallen branches, as well as fallen roof tiles and gutters. There are no reports of casualties.

According to the traffic centre, several roads have been blocked off by fallen trees.

In Evere the E40 motorway exit was blocked by a tree trunk, and in Tervuren the E411 motorway had to be closed at 6 am for the very same reason.

In Leuven, the entranceway to the university hospital site of Pellenberg was also blocked by trunks.

Brussels parks closed to the public

In Brussels, the Terkameren wood was closed off to all traffic. Walkers were not allowed to enter the other parks in the capital. In parks that cannot be closed off, signs were put up to warn the public.

More blown down and uprooted trees caused further disruption in Oelegem, Opglabbeek and Diepenbeek in Limburg province. In Kuringen, a home interior shop was damaged and a shopping marquee in front of a Carrefour supermarket store blew off.

In Pulderbus, a borough of Zandhoven in the province of Antwerp, a tree fell onto a house. In Brecht, in the same province, a tree fell through a roof and elsewhere in the same town scaffolding landed on the road. In Herentals, a chicken farm was left without electricity after the cables had snapped.

In East Flanders, the Ghent police was called out some 50 times, mainly for trees that were hindering traffic and roofing tiles and gutters that had come loose.

Whirlwind in Ostend

At sea, the pilotage services were not working. The emergency services were on standby to receive calls from ships in distress.

In the Ostend borough of Mariakerke, 15 houses were damaged by a whirlwind.

Further along the west coast in Nieuwpoort, a contractor had to secure a crane that was shaking.

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