German rail stops trains in half of country due to storms

BERLIN, Feb 17 (Reuters) – German nationwide railway firm Deutsche Bahn (DBN.UL) stated it has stopped long-distance practice providers in seven in a foreign country’s 16 states after Storm Ylenia slammed northern Germany within the early hours of Thursday morning.

The affected federal states are Decrease Saxony, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg and Berlin, although most different states are additionally affected, Deutsche Bahn stated on Thursday.

“Some long-distance trains finish and start properly earlier than the affected states,” the corporate stated in an announcement.

By 1230 GMT, gale-force winds had brought on one casualty, who died in a automobile after a tree collapsed on to a rustic street close to the city of Unhealthy Bevensen in Decrease Saxony, native police stated, confirming a report within the Bild newspaper.

The German Meteorological Service (DWD) stated in a tweet it had recorded a wind velocity of 152 kilometres per hour (94 mph) on the very best peak of the Harz mountain vary in northern Germany at 0000 GMT.

The storms additionally brought on a spate of energy cuts throughout the nation. In accordance with the Stoerungsauskunft web site that companions with German vitality suppliers to gather information about present outages, greater than 170 cities and cities have been affected at 1230 GMT.

In Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the facility cuts affected round 50,000 households based on an announcement on the official web site of the area’s Borken district.

Colleges in some states, together with NRW, have been closed on Thursday.

Reporting by Zuzanna Szymanska; Modifying by Toby Chopra, Kirsten Donovan

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Ideas.