European storm death toll mounts
Rescue workers at the sports hall in Sant Boi de Llobregat
High winds battering northern Spain have brought down the roof of a sports hall near Barcelona, killing four children, local officials say.
Seven people died in other incidents in Spain and south-western France as the fiercest storm in a decade blew in from the Atlantic.
Torrential rains and winds of up to 172km/h (107mph) are being reported.
At least 1m homes in France are without electricity, road and rail links are blocked and airports closed.
The impacts of the storm have been felt from the Channel Isles to Barcelona, but the strongest winds and heaviest rain has been concentrated around south-west France.
Although this type of active low pressure system is fairly common in winter, BBC meteorologist Alex Deakin says, Saturday's storm is being described as the most damaging since the devastating storm of December 1999 that killed 88 people.
Children killed
The sports hall partially collapsed in the town of Sant Boi de Llobregat, Catalonia, with between 20 and 30 youngsters inside, officials said.
 Public roads workers clear away trees in Bordeaux |
The youngsters had gathered to play baseball but the fierce winds drove them to take shelter in a small covered area for spectators, made of concrete, with a corrugated iron roof.
Moments later, the high winds caused the structure to collapse.
Local people and fire-fighters helped free the survivors from the rubble but three children aged between nine and twelve died at the scene, and a fourth child died later in hospital. More than a dozen others received treatment for injures.
In other incidents
- A driver was killed by a falling tree and a 78-year-old man was killed by flying debris in the Landes region of south-western France, near Bordeaux
- A collapsing wall killed a woman and a falling tree killed a male park employee in the Barcelona area
- In Galicia, a policeman was killed by a falling tree as he directed traffic in Burela and a sailor from a cargo ship died when the vessel got in trouble off the coast
- A falling wall crushed a man in Aigues de Busot, near Alicante in the south-east of Spain
Tens of thousands of homes have been left without power in the country.
'Ghost town'
French weather agencies had forecast the storm but it affected a wider area than expected. A state of "red alert" was declared in nine departments.
 Blocked roads are hampering efforts to repair damaged power lines |
The storm caused havoc from the Dordogne area to the Pyrenees. Torrential rains caused flooding in some areas prompting thousands of calls to the emergency services.
The force of the storm also led to the closure of airports in Bordeaux, Pau, Biarritz and Toulouse, and train services also ground to a halt, leaving several hundred passengers stranded in stations overnight.
Mark Richardson, a BBC News website reader visiting Bordeaux from the UK, writes that the city ground to a standstill following the storm overnight and felt like a ghost town.
Bob Thompson, another reader, writes from the countryside near Perigueux in the Dordogne that the fields "look like lakes". His electricity went off at about midnight and was not restored until midday, he adds.
The storms are expected to spread eastwards on Saturday bringing the risk of further heavy rain, strong winds and disruption, BBC weather experts say.
Although they are expected to weaken over the next 12-18 hours, parts of southern France could still see some damage, with the storm's strong winds funnelling through France's Rhone valley overnight.
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