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08:15, 17-Oct-2017
Hurricane Ophelia: Three dead as storm hits Ireland
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Three people died on Monday as the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia Monday hit Ireland, said police.
Two people were killed in separate incidents when trees fell on their cars – a woman in her 50s in the southeast and a man on the east coast. Another man in his 30s died while trying to clear a fallen tree in an incident involving a chainsaw.
The storm made landfall after 10:40 a.m. local time (0940 GMT), the Irish National Meteorological Service said, with winds as strong as 190 kph (110 mph) hitting the most southerly tip of the country.
Ophelia is the largest hurricane ever recorded so far east in the Atlantic Ocean and the furthest north since 1939. It was downgraded to a storm before it hit the Irish coast but nonetheless wrought havoc.
Thousands of homes and businesses lost power in Northern Ireland and Wales, along with over 330,000 in the Republic of Ireland.
About 200 flights from Ireland’s two main airports at Dublin and Shannon were cancelled.
The storm is working its way towards Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK overnight.
(With inputs from Reuters)