TWO people have been killed and many more were injured as Storm Ali thundered off the Atlantic into the UK and Ireland.
A woman reported locally to be in her 50s was killed when her caravan was blown off a cliff in County Galway, and in Northern Ireland, a man in his 20s was struck and killed by a falling tree.
In the latter incident the tree also injured another man in his 40s at the gates of Slieve Gullion Forest Park, near Newry, County Armagh.
In Scotland there was massive disruption, with reports of people being injured by fallen branches and masonry in Dumfries and Galloway where Storm Ali first made landfall in the country.
Schoolchildren in parts of Dumfries and Galloway were told not to go home from school until the winds subsided – the local Operations Support Team said children had been injured by flying debris.
In Dundee a gust of 102mph was recorded on the Tay Bridge, and in Edinburgh falling masonry from the historic Tron Kirk caused the closure of South Bridge that brought traffic chaos to the city centre.
It was a similar picture across the country with the main railway line between Perth and Inverness shut for several hours after a train was derailed by fallen branches.
Some 80,000 homes lost electricity for varying periods. Scottish Power Energy Networks said the biggest issue affecting the electricity network had been uprooted trees and other debris blown on to overhead power lines, which caused damage and brought down the power lines in some areas.
Transport chaos included all train services out of Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Queen Street and Glasgow Central’s high level being suspended.
At one point, Scotrail’s managing director Alex Hynes said only a “minority” of trains were running.
He said: “There is major disruption across the Scottish network. Storm Ali has blocked many lines and routes but we are working as fast as we can to reinstate rail services across the country.
“Network Rail engineers are working hard to clear the lines so it is safe to run trains again.”
More than 40 flights were cancelled at Glasgow Airport, but there were fewer cancellations at the country’s busiest airport, Edinburgh.
Meanwhile on the roads, the Tay Road Bridge was closed for hours while the Forth Road Bridge and Queensferry Crossing were open only to single deckers.
Further north on the A9, the Dornoch and Kessock Bridges were closed to high-sided vehicles, and there were numerous temporary road closures in many areas due to debris and fallen trees.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) issued nine specific flood warnings, the majority on Tayside but also for Ayr and Troon and Strathglass in the Highlands.
Sepa issued more general flood alerts for five areas – Tayside, Ayrshire and Arran, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway and West Central Scotland.
Numerous ferry services were cancelled around the coasts and in the Firth of Clyde, the cruise liner Nautica had to be assisted by tugs when its moorings broke.
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