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Vienna/Prague: Gale-force winds hammered Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic on Saturday, killing at least eight people, blocking transport networks and cutting power lines.
In Germany, trains were delayed by uprooted trees. An intercity express collided with a fallen tree between the cities of Cologne and Koblenz, injuring the driver.
Nearly 130 flights to or from Frankfurt airport were either cancelled or diverted, a spokesman said.
Air traffic in Austria and the Czech Republic was also briefly interrupted when the storm, packing winds of between 155 and 180 km/h, lashed parts of Central Europe.
The storms left a mounting death toll across the region. According to Austrian media four people died in the storm, three of them foreigners on holiday.
Two people died when uprooted trees smashed onto their cars near Vienna and western Tyrol province, police and rescue services said.
A 69-year-old German tourist was killed by a falling tree at a Tyrol campground. The fourth, believed to be a British tourist, died when a boulder loosened by high winds struck the taxi he was riding in through a mountain valley near Salzburg.
A 72-year-old motorcyclist in Bavaria, Germany, was killed when a gust blew him into advancing traffic, police said.
In the Czech Republic, an 11-year-old girl was killed by a falling tree north of Prague, and flying metal sheets struck and killed an 80-year-old priest in a town east of the central European country's capital, news agency CTK said.
Power cuts hit tens of thousands of households in Austria; and the high winds also disrupted power supplies to around 150,000 people in Bavaria, utility E.ON Bayern said.
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