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Ireland, parts of UK fight to restore power after Storm Eowyn
Ireland, parts of UK fight to restore power after Storm Eowyn
by AFP Staff Writers
London (AFP) Jan 25, 2025

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland remained without power late Saturday, as emergency responders battled to restore services following Storm Eowyn.

The storm, which Britain's Met Office said Saturday was "probably the strongest" to hit the UK in at least a decade, battered the region Friday, killing one person, grounding flights and shuttering schools.

Ireland recorded its strongest-ever wind gusts, as both countries braced for the arrival of further potentially disruptive weather over the weekend -- the Spanish-named Storm Herminia.

Britain's Met Office and the Irish Meteorological Service Met Eireann issued fresh warnings for snow, ice, wind and rain as it sweeps through the region Sunday and Monday.

As the clean-up from Eowyn continued, Ireland's ESB Networks said it had restored power to 366,000 homes, farms and businesses by Saturday evening but that 402,000 still had no electricity.

In Northern Ireland, approximately 140,000 homes remained without power by late afternoon, said electricity provider, NIE Networks.

And in Scotland, around 35,000 properties were still without power as Sunday approached. Road, rail, flights and ferries still faced disruption, the Scottish government said.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Northern Ireland's leaders and Scottish First Minister John Swinney to discuss what further support could be provided, the UK government said.

Swinney warned people in Scotland "should prepare for continued disruption" with the winter weather forecast into the next week.

Power cuts and transport chaos as Storm Eowyn hits Ireland and UK
Dublin (AFP) Jan 24, 2025 - Storm Eowyn caused havoc Friday as it battered Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland, killing one person and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power, flights grounded and schools shut, officials said.

Millions of people across the three nations were urged to shelter at home from the "destructive" storm as Ireland recorded its strongest-ever wind gusts. One man died in Ireland when a tree fell on his car, police said.

Gusts of 183 kilometres (114 miles) per hour -- breaking an 80-year-old record -- brought down power lines, felled trees, blocked roads and destroyed two Irish sports facilities.

By evening, the highest-level red warning had been lifted in Ireland and Scotland, but authorities still called for vigilance.

"It is so important that people follow... advice not to travel because if people stay at home and don't travel then it means they don't invite that risk to themselves," Scotland's deputy first minister Kate Forbes told BBC radio.

Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland closed schools and cancelled trains, flights and ferries.

After winds eased, Dublin Airport -- which had earlier announced that airlines had cancelled more than 120 scheduled departures and 110 arrivals -- said its first flight took off at around 0930 GMT.

Flights were also cancelled at other airports including Belfast in Northern Ireland and Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland.

Damage in Ireland included the destruction of an ice-skating rink near Dublin and a multi-million-pound indoor games facility in western County Mayo after winds ripped through them.

Cathriona Heffernan, 25, from Galway city in Ireland, described the winds as "crazy" even in the early stages of the storm, adding that five 60-year-old trees had been uprooted.

"One of them split right in half, so it's scary to think just how strong the wind was to be able to do that," she said.

Satellite imagery suggested a dangerous weather phenomenon known as a sting jet had developed over Ireland on Friday morning, the Met Office said.

A sting jet is a small area of very intense winds, which can be as strong as 160 kilometres per hour or more, it said.

The same type of extreme weather event was the cause of England's "Great Storm" in October 1987, which claimed 18 lives.

- 'Dangerous and destructive' -

In Ireland, 715,000 homes and businesses were without power while in Northern Ireland, over 93,000 were hit by outages, electricity suppliers said.

The highest wind speed recorded in Britain on Friday was 149 kilometres per hour at Brizlee Wood in Northumberland in northeast England, according to the Met Office.

The strongest gust ever recorded in the UK is 228 kilometres per hour at Fraserburgh in eastern Scotland, on February 13, 1989.

Irish forecaster Met Eireann said on X the previous record in Ireland was 182 kilometres per hour, recorded in 1945.

Northern Ireland Electricity Networks said Storm Eowyn was causing "widespread damage" to the electricity network.

"We anticipate we will begin assessing the damage to the network after 2:00 pm once the red weather warning has been lifted," it said in a statement.

In Scotland over 22,000 homes were without electricity, suppliers said, fallen trees and debris having damaged power lines.

Hundreds of schools were closed for the day and train operator ScotRail suspended all services. Many rail routes in northern England were also axed.

Britain's environment agency warned of flooding in southern and central England over the coming days.

Ahead of the storm, some 4.5 million people on Thursday received emergency alerts on their phones, the "largest real-life use of the tool to date" on Thursday, the UK government said.

Scientists have shown that climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels is making storms more severe, super-charged by warmer oceans.

Storms, however, are natural phenomena and to date no specific scientific attribution to climate change has been made for this storm.

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