Three dead in UK as Storm Babbitt heads towards Scandinavia

Heavy rains and violent winds have rocked a wide area from Ireland to northern Scotland since Wednesday.

The national weather agency has extended the red alert, which initially ended in Scotland at noon on Friday, until Saturday.

At Leeds Bradford Airport in northern England, a passenger plane slid off the runway while trying to land amid strong winds, without causing any casualties.

Storm Babbitt could also cause devastation in other areas of the UK, which is why the Met Services have issued an orange alert from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning for several areas in northern and central England and northern England.

Police said northwest Scotland was particularly hard hit, where the body of a 57-year-old woman was found on Thursday evening in a river in the coastal area of ​​Angus between Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Police added that a 56-year-old man also died on Thursday night when his car collided with a tree near the town of Forfar in the same area.

On Friday, another man in his sixties died after being trapped in a stream in Shropshire, central England.

Hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate their homes since Thursday, due to flooding in several towns, such as Brechin.

Local council member Jill Scott told the British PA agency: “It is absolutely terrible,” explaining that there are people “trapped” in some neighborhoods of Brechin. He added, “The rescuers’ boats are trying to reach them, but they cannot, because the current is very strong.”

In Ireland, hundreds of homes were flooded in Cork (south), where city officials reported that they had not been exposed to floods of this magnitude for at least thirty years.

Not far from there, the army deployed to evacuate a hospital in the town of Middleton.

The storm is now heading towards Denmark and Sweden, where meteorologists expect heavy flooding.

“The winds have already begun to gain strength and are expected to peak during the night,” Ida Dahlstrom, a meteorologist at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, told AFP.

SMHI and its Danish counterpart DMI issued warning warnings of heavy rain, flooding and strong winds.

A total of 77 flights to and from Copenhagen Airport in Denmark have been cancelled, DMI reported on X (formerly Twitter).

Several ferry companies have suspended services between Denmark and Germany as a precaution, and will also not operate Sweden’s usual routes with Germany and Poland.

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