High winds and torrential rains pummel northern Spain and south-western France
1. Three children were killed when the roof of a sports hall collapsed in the northern Spanish town of Sant Boi de Llobregat, near Barcelona, amid winds of up to 170km/h, officials said. At least two other adults were also killed in Spain in separate storm-related incidents.
2. “Part of the building collapsed, there were between 20 and 30 youngsters inside. We know there are some dead and 16 injured,” a local government spokeswoman told AFP news agency.
A man looks at a tree split by a storm in Toulouse, France. Photograph: Pascal Pavani/AFP/Getty Images. Image may be subject to copyright.
3. “An official with the Barcelona region’s Interior Ministry said ‘many children’ were trapped in the debris at the sports center, without offering specific figures. She spoke on condition of anonymity under agency rules.” AP said.
4. A woman was killed when a wall collapsed on her in Barcelona, while a traffic officer was killed by a falling tree in Burela, Galicia.
5. More than a million homes in France are without electricity, while roads have been blocked, train services halted and airports closed, as huge waves battered the French and Spanish coastline, BBC quoted authorities as saying.
6. “The storms are expected to spread eastwards on Saturday bringing the risk of further heavy rain, strong winds and disruption, BBC weather experts said.”
7. “The number of clients who are cut off from the grid is rising from minute to minute as the storm moves eastwards,” a spokesperson for the electricity grid operator, ERDF, told local media.
8. The storm is reportedly the most powerful to hit south-western France since December 1999, when about 90 people were killed and up to four million homes left without electricity.
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