Storm in North Sea alerts in Europe, avoided the worst seems to Britain AFP - Friday, November 9, 12:40
LONDON (AFP) - A severe storm has raged in the night from Thursday to Friday in the North Sea, contragnant several oil companies to shut offshore platforms in Norway, while the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany were on alert.
Hundreds of people were evacuated on the east coast of England due to a high risk of flooding, but the worst seemed avoided after the peak of the tide Friday morning, said the Environment Agency.
"We have not heard of cases of flooded properties at this stage," said the spokesman for the Environment Agency Stewart Brennan, once the peak of the tide passed after 8 pm local time (even GMT).
The agency had issued the day before eight severe flood warnings and warned against "extreme danger to lives and property" in coastal areas of Norfolk and Suffolk, and parts of Kent and Essex.
About 500 people spent the night in shelters and others fled the first floor of their house.
The UK Environment Minister, Hilary Benn, warned Thursday against the risk of serious flooding along the east coast of England until Saturday.
"A tidal wave of up to three meters high made progress since the North Sea. This coincides with the highest tides," said Hilary Benn to the House of Commons (lower house of Parliament).
Stewart Wortley, weather services said that this wave height had not been seen since "approximately 20 years." The tide was expected on Friday morning but "the storm is expected to calm "in the course of the day Friday, he said.
The strongest winds hit the north of Scotland. On the island of North Rona, and they have reached over 160 km / h Thursday morning, before continuing toward the southeast.
In France, strong wind gusts recorded in the North on Thursday between 19:00 and 20:00 caused localized damage, including roofs and uprooting trees, causing no wounded, officials said Friday from firefighters.
The main affected areas were located around Dunkirk, Tourcoing and Douai.
the night, firefighters conducted a hundred interventions in the North: a score on the coast, a quarantine on the city of Lille, in the ten-Cambraisis avesnois and thirty in the Valenciennes-Douai.
In the neighboring department of Pas-de-Calais, gusts up to 110 km / h were recorded at Lillers, according to firefighters, who spoke about thirty times in the evening for a few trees uprooted and roofs flights. Here again the damage had been no injuries.
storm current has led oil companies to temporarily close platforms off Norway, slashing more than 10% of production Scandinavian countries, the fifth largest exporter of crude, according to a statement carried by AFP Thursday.
Vigilance was also put in Germany, while the Netherlands were on alert and had to close the port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe.
More than the wind, which would still sweep the Dutch coast with a force 9, according to the weather service (KNMI) is the expected combination storm / rising waters forced him to take action, according specialized services.
A spokesman for the Department of Transportation interviewed on public radio NOS said that the violence of the storm could approach that of 1953 which had some 1,800 dead and 72,000 displaced.
For the first time since 1976, monitoring services dikes were put on alert on the entire coast of the Netherlands, one third of the territory is under the water level and protected by more than 17,500 kilometers of dunes and dikes.
In Germany, the Office of maritime navigation and hydrography, based in Hamburg (north), warned at the mouth of the Elbe water levels could exceed the average flood usually recorded a height of up to two meters. At Emden, a town near the border Netherlands, the level of the river Ems could exceed three meters the normal level.