2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
The Deutsche Bahn stopped its long-distance traffic nationwide because of the storm "Friederike". The hurricane leaves a lot of chaos in many places.
It is shortly before 11 a.m. when the railway decides to stop train traffic in North Rhine-Westphalia. “Due to storm” - due to a storm - no trains run here for the time being. In the course of the day, other federal states follow the rapid path of the hurricane «Friederike» - in the afternoon even all of the long-distance traffic.
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More and more travelers get stranded in the train stations. Ironically, on the eleventh anniversary of the destructive hurricane «Kyrill», another severe storm has Germany firmly under control. On Thursday morning, “Friederike” first met Belgium and the Netherlands and caused a lot of chaos there. Numerous trees are uprooted, a car driver is killed by a falling tree.
Friederike also causes problems in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, two people die from falling trees and broken branches. In a video on Twitter you can see how people in Amsterdam are literally knocked down and falling in a large square. Not far from the cheese town of Gouda, a curious train accident occurs because a trampoline is blown onto the tracks. Fortunately, nobody gets hurt in the process.
A little later, the hurricane hits North Rhine-Westphalia with force and shakes the everyday life of many people here too. A 59-year-old is killed by a tree on a campsite on the Rhine near Emmerich. In the afternoon, more fatalities from Germany are reported by «Friederike». On numerous motorways and country roads, not only fallen trees block traffic but also trucks knocked over by the wind. In the Düsseldorf pedestrian zone, tables and chairs lie in piles on top of each other, and the wind has scattered dozens of bicycles and many a Dixie loo all over the streets.
The city of Cologne partially closes the area around the cathedral and warns of falling rocks. Overall, there are few people to be seen in the streets and squares. If you do venture outside, you sometimes have to hold on to street lamps to avoid being carried away by the violent gusts of wind. For example, WDR posted a video of an elderly lady who was fighting through the gusts with her suitcase at Weeze Airport near Düsseldorf - and only reached the airport hall with the help of the reporter.
People knocked down by a gust
In Essen, a postwoman said that she and her handcart were literally lifted by a gust and thrown into the bushes. After that, she went to a few corporate customers, but then decided to get better security.
While “Friederike” is still raging in the west, wind speeds of around 100 kilometers per hour are already being measured on the Brocken - and train traffic to the mountain in the Harz Mountains has been stopped. According to the German Weather Service, in the early afternoon it is more than 200 kilometers per hour. Hurricane low “Kyrill” remained just below this mark in 2007 in the same place. The German Weather Service is now speaking of a “top class hurricane”. In northern Germany, “Friederike” is accompanied by heavy snowfall, at times.
"The trees fall like matches," says a spokesman for the situation center in Goslar. The entire Upper Harz is practically impassable. In southern Lower Saxony, around 250 travelers have been stuck in an ICE that had crashed into a fallen tree since the early afternoon. Passengers should transfer to another train over footbridges on the open route, which should stop on the adjacent track.
At the main train station in Hanover, frustrated passengers are supplied with hot drinks, salty snacks and wine gums by Deutsche Bahn. Long queues form at the information desks. At the train station in Essen, numerous travelers sit patiently on the stairs, stand against the walls and look at their cell phones. Every few minutes an announcement is made that nothing works and that it is very dangerous on the platforms.
Understanding of the decision of the railway
Most of them understand the large-scale cessation of train traffic. «Nobody can do anything for that. It's force majeure. It is better to stand here in the train station than on the open road,”says a 51-year-old. This is exactly the tactic of Deutsche Bahn for some time. The railway wants to inform tonight when it will start operations again.
A 48-year-old from Oberhausen, on the other hand, disagrees: “Shouldn't you work anymore because of a little stronger wind? Safety first, but still - that nothing works anymore?"
Fabian (20) and Laura (20) are much more relaxed about it - and like many other students all over Germany can look forward to a day off. You are attending a vocational college in Cologne, but you live in Rhineland-Palatinate. They can't get there for the time being - but they take it easy. "Always better than school," says Laura.
Serious incidents also occurred in other European countries due to storms on Thursday. In the southern Italian city of Crotone, a man is blown off the roof of his house and fatally injured, and in Rome a girl is injured after tiles from a school are thrown through the air. In Beenham, west of London, a wolf escapes from a game reserve because the hurricane tears down a fence. (dpa)
