Hurricane-force winds bring power outages and travel chaos to western Europe

Winds gusting to hurricane force caused havoc in parts of western Europe Monday leaving tens of thousands of homes without power, forcing flight cancellations and the closure of roads and bridges.

In France, at least 60,000 homes were without power at one point, more than half of them in the western provinces of Brittany and Normandy, which later dropped to around 15,000 outages by the late afternoon, electricity grid operator ERDF said.

The strongest gusts were recorded on the Breton tourist island of Belle-Ile, where the wind reached 150km/h.

In Britain, the same weather system - dubbed “Storm Katie” - left a trail of disruption in its wake as it swept across southern England overnight, leaving debris and roadwork barriers strewn across London’s streets.

Police in Surrey were searching for a missing person after his kayak capsized in the river Wey.

Winds gusting to 170km/h forced the cancellation of around 150 flights in and out of Britain and cut power in more than 100,000 homes, with around 60,000 still without electricity by late afternoon, local utilities reported.

Heathrow, one of the world’s busiest airports, reported around 130 cancellations with other flights delayed or diverted to other airports on the busy Easter holiday weekend.