Six people dead after Storm Ciara wreaks havoc across Europe

Heavy winds and heavy rains claimed at least six lives across northern Europe on Monday as Storm Ciara disrupted travel, grounded hundreds of flights, flooded roads and left vast areas without power.

In one of the region’s most violent storms for years, one man died and another was reported missing in southern Sweden when their boat capsized.

In the Czech Republic, one man died when his car went off the road trying to avoid a fallen tree. Several other people were also injured in the country as winds blew up to 180 kilometres (110 miles) an hour, leaving 100,000 people without power, even toppling over a truck.

In Slovenia, a 52-year-old man died on Monday when a tree fell on his car as he travelled in the northeast of the country.

In southern Poland, a 40-year-old woman and her young daughter were killed by roofing torn away by the storm-force winds.

Police in London said that a man was killed in his car on Sunday when a tree fell on to a motorway southwest of the capital.

In the west of Germany, falling trees seriously injured three people: two women in Sarrebruck — one of whom was in a critical condition — and a 16-year-old boy in Paderborn.

The storm has swept across the region since the weekend.