Sawt Falasteen - Storms pummel northern Europe causing travel mayhem and power cuts

Some 50 flights were cancelled in London's Heathrow airport, affecting thousands of passengers, and air travel was disrupted as far away as the Czech Republic.

Forecasters from Britain to Germany urged people to stay indoors as they issued weather warnings, including the rare, highest-level red wind alert for the British Isles of Scilly and Cornwall in southwestern England.

All trains were cancelled in Cornwall on Friday.

Some 57,000 homes in the UK remained without electricity, according to the National Grid energy provider, after Storm Goretti brought strong winds and heavy snow to parts of the country overnight.

More than 250 schools remained closed across Scotland, which has struggled through bad weather for much of the first week back after the Christmas break.

In France, Goretti cut power to some 380,000 homes, most of them in the northern Normandy region, the Enedis power provider said.

Overnight, gusts of up to 216 kilometres per hour (134 miles per hour) were registered in France's northwestern Manche region, authorities said.

The winds felled trees in several regions, with at least one crashing on residential buildings in France's Seine-Maritime region, without injuries, authorities said.

Gusts of up to 160 kph lashed England and Wales with the Met Office forecasting agency warning of "very large waves" bringing "dangerous conditions to coastal areas".

It also issued an amber snow warning in Wales, central England and parts of northern England, predicting snow of up to 30 centimetres (11 inches) in some areas.

At least eight people have died in weather-related accidents this week across Europe, the latest being a man whose body was pulled from floodwater in the Albanian city of Durres on Thursday following days of heavy snow and torrential rain across the Balkans.

- Schools out -

Schools remained shut in parts of northern France, where weather alerts have been issued in 30 other regions.

Giant waves crashed over harbour walls across France's far northwest overnight, and as the storm moved eastwards it brought flooding and forced the closure of roads and ports including Dieppe.

Northern Germany faced severe disruption from heavy snow and high winds brought by another storm, called Elli, with schools ordered closed in the cities of Hamburg and Bremen and long-distance rail services cancelled across the north.

Some 600 schools were closed in Moldova until next Monday and some 1,000 households were without electricity in Romania.

Floodwaters were meanwhile receding in parts of the Balkans on Friday after heavy snowfall and torrential downpours earlier in the week triggered hundreds of evacuations across several countries and killed at least two people.

But weather warnings for icy conditions and snowfall remained in effect across most of the region, including Serbia, where parts of the west have been without power for days after a snowstorm knocked out power lines.

burs-ach/rmb

R.Shaban--SF-PST