Storm hits northern Europe

A storm battering north-western Europe has killed at least 13 people - six of them in Germany.

Two people died when their car was crushed by a falling tree in Gelsenkirchen, in western Germany. Two children in the car were injured.

In Brittany, western France, a woman was swept out to sea. And in the Dutch city of Aterdam a tree felled by the wind crushed a woman by a canal.

Record gusts of 191 km/h (119mph) were measured over the North Sea.

Many trains were cancelled in and around London and in north-western Germany.

At least 50 flights were cancelled at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, and the German media reported severe delays at airports in Hamburg and Dusseldorf.

In Germany, a fisherman and a sailor were killed in separate accidents at sea.

Including the Gelsenkirchen incident, four people were killed in north-western Germany when trees fell onto cars, DPA reported.

Power cuts hit 42,000 homes in northern France, and at Belle-Ile in Brittany a woman was swept into the sea from a cliff.

The storm whipped across Brittany and Normandy early on Monday, felling trees and knocking out power lines in some places.

In the UK as many as 600,000 homes suffered power cuts, though many were later reconnected.

In Kent in southeast England, a 17-year-old girl was crushed when a tree fell on the caravans her family was living in while renovation work was taking place at their home.

A man and a woman died when they were trapped under rubble after an uprooted tree caused a gas explosion in Hounslow in west London.