Storm Ingunn has battered Norway – with wind gusts of more than 120mph (193km per hour).
Households in central areas on Thursday woke to find they were without power, while a bus was blown off a road northeast of Bergen.
None of the 14 passengers on board were injured, police said.
Some areas were flooded, and the hurricane-force winds forced airlines and ferry operators to temporarily suspend services.
There were reports of schools closing, as well as roads, tunnels and bridges.
Several windows were also blown out of a hotel in Bodo in the Nordland district, where police had issued a “danger to life” warning in Downtown Bodo. Bodo is situated just north of the Arctic Circle.
The hotel’s manager confirmed damage to the top floor of the 13-storey Radison Blu to Norwegian regional newspaper Rana Blad.
A police cordon was set up around central Bodo, according to local newspaper Avisa Bordland.
A hospital in Harstrad also suffered damage. Photos in Norwegian media showed a helicopter landing pad littered with debris.
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“Roof tiles are flying everywhere throughout the town and visibility is poor,” the town’s spokesperson, Oivind Arvola, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Image: Police set up a cordon in central Bodo. Pic: NTB/Per-Inge Johnsen/Reuters
The storm, named by Norwegian meteorologists as the most powerful the country has seen in three decades, landed in the central region of the Scandinavian country on Wednesday, before moving north on Thursday.
The Meteorological Institute had issued a red warning – its highest alert – for the Arctic region.
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The UK’s Met Office said: “Storm Ingunn… produced wind gusts in excess of 120mph to the Faroe Islands and parts of Norway during Wednesday along with heavy rain and mountain snowfall.
“This system will move away to the northeast and weaken through Thursday, with winds rapidly decreasing across Norway.”
Bjornar Gaasvik, a police spokesman in the Troendelag region, told Norwegian news agency NTB that the country’s public safety agency received between 40 and 50 reports overnight from people affected by the storm – and more were expected on Thursday.
Sigmund Clementz of IF Insurance told Norwegian newspaper VG it was too early to estimate the cost of the storm damage.
Source : Sky News
