More major storm sparks travel chaos

   LONDON, March 11, 2008 – Heavy storms were expected to cause more
travel chaos in Britain Tuesday, with France also preparing for more bad
weather, after three vessels ran into problems in the Channel a day earlier.
   Five French fishermen were rescued from a trawler which sank late Monday in
gale-force winds off the Channel island of Guernsey, maritime officials said,
while a body was separately recovered off the coast of Brittany in northwest
France, feared to be that of a man missing since Sunday.
   A woman also died in Normandy after she was hit by a branch.
   In Britain, more than a hundred flights were cancelled at airports
including London’s Heathrow and the port of Dover was temporarily closed due
to the storms, described by experts as possibly the biggest of the winter that
could cause hundreds of millions of pounds (euros/dollars) in damage.
   Amid gale-force winds of up to 80 miles (130 kilometres) per hour and
driving rain, airports were among the worst hit with cancellations and delays
brought on by precautionary measures taken by air traffic controllers.
   A spokesman for airports operator BAA said that 115 flights from Heathrow
had been cancelled by Monday evening, but could not give details on the number of cancellations from London’s Gatwick airport.
   Prime Minister Gordon Brown had to cancel a planned meeting with Slovak
Prime Minister Robert Fico after his flight from Bratislava was cancelled due
to the bad weather.
   Sweeping in from the Atlantic, the storm hit first in Cornwall and Devon in
the southwest of the country, before moving east across England and Wales.
   There was widespread disruption on trains in southern England, including
London where underground train services were also hit by flooding, while speed restrictions were imposed on trains because of heavy rain and high winds.
   About 30 people were rescued when a beachfront caravan park was flooded by seawater, which breached defences near Chichester, on the English south coast, a coastguard spokesman said.
   Further west a Swedish tanker with 13 crew on board got into difficulties
off the Isle of Wight, coastguards said. Two coastguard tugs were sent to help
the stricken 11,000-tonne vessel, the Astral.
   Association of British Insurers Director of General Insurance and Health
Nick Starling said that while it was too early to say how much the damage
caused by the storms could cost, "events like this can cost hundreds of
millions of pounds".
   In France an 88-metre (290 foot) long cargo vessel, the Artemis, ran
aground on a beach at Sables-d’Olonne, on the Atlantic coast, according to the
local government office.
   Later in the day a French trawler, the Marie Louise Bert, sank: the vessel,
based in Saint-Brieuc with five crew, went down 41 nautical miles west of
Guernsey in winds of up to 110 kmh.
   All those on board were rescued by nearby vessels, according to the local
French government office, after a French helicopter and a Channel Islands
rescue airplane were dispatched to the scene.
   Meanwhile a body was found off the Brittany coast, feared to be that of a
26-year-old man missing since falling into the sea at Relecq-Kerhuon, near the
port city of Brest.
   The distribution arm of energy group EDF also said in a statement that
about 60,000 French households were without electricity on Monday because of
the storms, with a company spokeswoman telling AFP that the situation could
get worse as the evening progressed.
   At one point the wind was gusting up to 155 kph (87 mph), according to
French weather experts.
   "We haven’t had one this strong this year," said Emmanuel Bocri, a
forecaster for Meteo France, adding: "In general there are one or two of this
strength each winter."

AFP