Hurricane-Force Winds Hit Northern U.K.

A man passes by two cars crushed under an uprooted tree during heavy storms in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Thursday Jan. 18, 2007. Northern Europe was buffeted by an unusually strong storm Thursday that killed at least one person, disrupted the schedule of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and wreaked transportation havoc in the air, on land and at sea. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong) (Peter Dejong - AP)

Rail stations across London also were closed, and the evening commute melted into chaos.

"First the buses couldn't cross the bridge because of the wind, and now this," said Paul Richards, 26, a real estate agent trying to reach London Bridge station.

He swore, and turned back to retrace his steps across the wind-swept bridge.

Traffic on the M-25 around London, the busiest highway in Europe, was backed up for miles after three trucks were knocked over by a single gust of wind at around 1 p.m.

Traffic accidents accounted for many of the fatalities. Ten deaths were reported in the United Kingdom while seven died in Germany; four in the Netherlands, three in the Czech Republic, two in Belgium and one in France.

In Amsterdam, bicyclists who ventured out despite warnings from the fire department were blown over or, in some cases, blown backward.

City workers trying to divert cars from fallen trees watched as the wind swept their traffic cones away. Amsterdam's historic canals were littered with trash barrels, toppled bikes and broken umbrellas.

In Utrecht, the Netherlands, a construction crane toppled onto a university building, crumpling the roof and injuring six people.

Heathrow Airport, Europe's largest, canceled 280 flights. Other major airports _ including Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam and Vienna _ reported delays and cancellations.

At sea, coast guard ships and naval helicopters rescued the crew of a British container ship damaged and drifting in the English Channel.

In Ireland and Latvia, winds kept rescue crews from helping other ships damaged or missing after storms earlier this week. Seven fishermen from Ireland, Poland and Ukraine are missing and presumed dead off the Irish coast, while Latvian rescuers were unable to attempt to salvage a cargo ship that ran aground Tuesday off the Baltic port of Ventspils and has been leaking oil.

A ship burst loose from its moorings near Rotterdam and smashed an oil pipeline, leaking about 10,000 barrels of oil. The stench reached The Hague, 20 miles away.

Austria's national weather service said storm winds could reach 105 mph at higher altitudes in the Alps, and officials cautioned skiers and snowboarders to get off the mountains and seek shelter well before nightfall.

In western Austria, a power outage forced the closure of at least one major motorway tunnel. More than 20,000 homes were in the dark as well, the region's main power utility said.

__

Associated Press Writer Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Ireland, Jennifer Barchfield in Paris and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this story.