BERLIN: Trains on Germany’s intercity lines resumed running early on Friday, a day after being suspended when violent gales battered northern Europe, as the toll of the deadly storm rose to eight in the country.

Two more people were reported killed in the worst storm to strike Germany in a decade, adding to an earlier toll of six which included two firefighters deployed to attend to emergencies.

A 64-year-old man fell eight metres while he was working to secure the roof of a house. He later died in hospital, police from the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said.

Another man, 34, also succumbed to his injuries after he was crushed by a falling tree, added police.

The huge storm caused another three deaths elsewhere in northern Europe and left air and rail traffic in chaos.

In southern Germany, the high-speed ICE trains were running as normal on Friday morning, although the service in the rest of the country remained subject to major disruptions, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

The company had on Thursday suspended all high-speed services due to storm Friederike in the first such stoppage since 2007 when major gales battered the country.

By the end of the morning, trains should be running to all the main cities, Deutsche Bahn said, with the service expected to be back to normal by the weekend.

Regional train services were also disrupted on Friday, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state.

Hundreds of rail staff worked through the night to clear the tracks of branches and trees.

Many trees were uprooted by the force of the storm which saw winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour while others worked to repair damage to the lines, it said.

Meanwhile, baby Anton was born during the storm in his parents’ car in the western city of Cologne as traffic chaos unleashed by the extreme weather stopped them from getting to the clinic in time.

Devastation

Meanwhile, Dutch insurers said that fierce storms that whipped across The Netherlands caused 90 million euros ($111 million) in devastation, as the country’s train service slowly creaked back into gear.

“The January storm that raged across our country yesterday caused considerable damage,” the Dutch Association of Insurers said.

“According to our first estimates, the damage to homes and cars is at least 90 million euros,” it said, cautioning that it had not yet added in the cost of any havoc to businesses, government buildings and the agriculture sector.

The Netherlands bore the early brunt of Thursday’s severe winter storms which blew in with winds of up to 140 kilometres an hour off the North Sea.

It then barrelled across northern Europe, leaving several people, including two firefighters, dead in its wake.

The Dutch railway service, NS, had cancelled all trains on Thursday, stranding thousands of commuters and travellers.

On Friday morning, many trains were running again although railway staff were still busy clearing away fallen trees from the tracks, and fixing overhead lines.

There were still no trains serving the busy route between Schiphol airport and Leiden Central “due to a defective overhead line,” although buses had been laid on, NS said. The problem should be fixed by midday, it added.

Schiphol airport, one of Europe’s busiest flight hubs, was forced to cancel all flights in or out for about two hours on Thursday.

In a Tweet on Friday, it said it “expects a normal day but it can be busier at the airport due to cancellations and rebooking of yesterday’s flights.”

Agence France-Presse