Storms Batter Mediterranean

Death toll rises as storms batter Mediterranean

Four children among nine people killed in Spain and southern France as winds reach 108mph

• Agencies
• guardian.co.uk , Saturday 24 January 2009 15.19 GMT

Rescuers work at a sports centre which collapsed in high winds killing four children in Sant Boi Llobregat, Spain. Photograph: Manu Fernandez/AP

Four children were killed today when the roof of a sports centre near Barcelona collapsed, as destructive storms swept through the Mediterranean for a second day.

Four other people were killed in northern Spain and French emergency forces reported the first fatality as winds of up to 108mph (174km/h) battered the region.

Catalan emergency services said four children had died and 16 people were injured when part of a sports centre collapsed in the town of Sant Boi de Llobregat, near Barcelona, Reuters reported.

"It was horrific," Jose Antonio Godina, a parent, was quoted by El Mundo newspaper as saying at the sports centre. "We heard a loud noise and we thought a tree had fallen on a roof. But when we got here, the roof of the annex had literally flown off and the walls had fallen in on them."

A woman who said she had seen the accident told the Spanish national broadcaster TVE that the children were preparing to play on a baseball field when they took shelter under a viewing stand with a corrugated metal roof.

A policeman was killed by a falling tree in Galicia, northern Spain, and a man died after a wall collapsed in Alicante. Another man was killed by a falling tree and a woman died yesterday when a wall toppled on to her, both in Barcelona.

The storms left more than 1m homes without power in south-west France, while rail and road travel was severely disrupted.

The government office in the Landes region announced the first death in France linked to the storm after a driver was crushed in his car by a falling tree, the regional prefecture said.

The French interior minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, announced that 715 civil security agents would be deployed in the region, in addition to the 300 who were usually there, and that she planned to fly over the area tomorrow once the high winds had died down.

The prime minister, Francois Fillon, speaking at a meeting of the governing conservatives in Paris, said his thoughts were with "our countrymen in the south of our country who are now facing a very serious storm."

Rescue teams fanned out as heavy rain and winds of up to 108mph pounded the coast south of Bordeaux, while the city faced winds of up to 99mph.

French TV showed images including fallen power lines, uprooted trees lying across roads, a car crushed under a collapsed wall, and a traffic light post that had toppled over.

In Bordeaux's Gironde region, rescuers evacuated 19 residents of a retirement home after its rooftop was blown away. Authorities evacuated campers from the pine forests in the sandy Landes region to the south.

All flights in Bordeaux and Toulouse were temporarily halted, and authorities in the region ordered a halt to tractor-trailer and tour-bus traffic. The national railway operator stopped trains throughout the area.

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