Storms in Europe kill two, cause damage and travel disruption

May 27, 2009, 8:58 GMT

Berlin - Storms raging across Germany, Switzerland and Austria killed two men Tuesday night, as huge hailstones and lightning felled trees, struck farm animals, set buildings alight and caused travel chaos, according to reports Wednesday.

A 26-year-old was hit by a falling tree near the Bavarian town of Passau in Germany as he was riding his quad bike alongside a forest, police said.

In Switzerland, a 31-year-old man died when a tree fell on his car in the town of Romanshorn, on the shores of Lake Constance.

In the nearby city of Constance, a freak hailstorm buried the streets in up to 10 centimetres of ice.

A train carrying 150 passengers was derailed in the Swabian town of Baienfurt, southern Germany, after a tree fell on the tracks. The train driver was seriously injured and five passengers suffered light injury, fire officers said.

More than 100 pigs and cattle died in lightening strikes on farm yards.

Falling trees and branches injured two women, one in the Swiss city of Luzern and another in the Bavarian town of Weilheim.

The storm damage interrupted German airport and railway operations. On national motorways criss-crossing Germany, strong winds blew over lorries and littered the tracks with branches and debris.

At least three houses caught fire in Germany, and one woman suffered smoke poisoning.

In the western part of Austria, thunderstorms and heavy rain also caused serious damage to buildings. Some 22,000 homes were without electricity for several hours.

In the town of Bregenz in the west of the country, the roof of the train station was damaged and several cars were crushed by falling trees on Tuesday as a wind swept the region at 113 kilometres per hour. Nobody was seriously injured.