European storm toll climbs

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 8

European storm toll climbs

NZPA-Reuter London Up to 14 people were feared dead at sea and on land in storms that lashed western Europe at the week-end, sinking fishing boats, sweeping cars into the sea and cutting telephone and power lines. In Britain, the wreck of a fishing boat that went missing off west Scotland with six people on board was found by police divers on the bottom of the Firth of Clyde only quarter of a mile offshore from Gourock. There was no immediate sign of survivors. The boat, the Destiny, went missing as gales of more than 160km/h and torrential rain pounded the British coast, crumbling sea defences and causing

flooding. In France, a television cameraman for the State channel FR3 who was out filming the storms was killed when his car was swept into the sea at Conquet, Brittany on Sunday. One person was killed and nine were injured yesterday when a golf clubhouse at Vill-ennes-sur-Seine, 20km west of Paris, collapsed in a gale, emergency services said. On the northern French coast, a 32-year-old Greece-born man was missing after he was swept away by waves when he tried to rescue his dog, which had been submerged under high seas at Saint-Pierre-en-Port, Normandy. A crew member of the Irish

trawler Arklow Victor also went missing off Brittany after being washed overboard as a French navy helicopter rescued the five other crew from the stricken vessel. Storms wrought havoc in north-west Spain, closing airports, cutting roads and power lines, and uprooting trees. The police said at least two people had been killed. In ndrthern Portugal, a 73-year-old woman was killed in Guarda when her house collapsed, and three men were feared drowned after a sandladen barge overturned near the mouth of the River Tagus on the Atlantic coast. • A helicopter crewman helped rescue 21 sailors from stormy

seas — then rushed back to play Santa Claus to eager children of service personnel. Julian Grinney, aged 38, of the naval «»ir station at Culdrose, Cornwall, was on one of two Royal Navy helicopters which tackled Force 11 winds to resuce stranded people on a cargo ship. The 4000-ton Spanish container ship Julia del Mar had issued a Mayday after losing her steering gear in the storm near the Bay of Biscay. The helicopters returned from the 9y 2 hour operation, the crewman had a two-hour break, and then took to the skies again on the Santa Claus run to R.A.F. St Mawgan, 60km away in Newquay.