Boelo and Austen cut power to 150,000 homes across UK, France, and Germany

Two storms hit northern Europe within 24 hours of each other, leaving more than 150,000 homes without electricity and killing one man. The systems, named Boelo and Austen, caused widespread damage to infrastructure and travel networks across the region on Sunday.

In the United Kingdom, over 82,000 households lost power. A 60-year-old man in southwestern Scotland died when a tree fell on him. Two women in central Scotland were injured by another falling tree. Wind speeds reached 135 km/h in Argyll and Bute. Debris from trees and power cables blocked roads and rail lines in Scotland and northern England.

France experienced the highest peak outage, with 288,000 homes losing electricity when Austen intensified on Saturday. By midday Sunday, 59,000 homes in Normandy and Brittany remained in the dark. A marathon runner in northern France sustained minor injuries after a tree fell during a race.

Germany reported power cuts for at least 10,000 homes in and around Freiburg-Breisgau. The city’s main hospital limited its services to emergency cases because the blackout also disrupted the mobile phone network. In the town of Nastatten, German police reported that two people were seriously injured when scaffolding was blown away at a market on Saturday.

The storms affected the Netherlands and Belgium as well. Four people were injured by falling trees in Brussels. Near the island of Schiermonnikoog, three crew members on a freight ship were injured. Two of them were transported by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland.

Hundreds of flights were cancelled or diverted across northern Europe, including at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. The UK’s Met Office warned that Boelo posed a danger to life from flying debris and crashing waves, advising people to stay indoors. Authorities in Scotland and England warned of flood risks in various regions.