On Monday, Ireland was hit by Hurricane Orphelia in what officials called an "unprecedented storm" that left three people dead, more than 300,000 customers without power and shut down schools as well as government offices.
A police spokesman said one woman in her 50s was killed outside the village of Aglish, near the south coast, when a tree fell on her car. A female passenger in her 70s suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Another man died in an accident while he was clearing a fallen tree with a chainsaw near the town of Cahir, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) further inland.
And
the third victim was a man killed on the roads by a falling tree north
of Dundalk in the northeast, close to the border with Northern Ireland,
police said in a statement.
Ophelia,
the largest hurricane ever recorded so far east in the Atlantic Ocean
and the furthest north since 1939, was downgraded to a storm before it
hit the Irish coast but nonetheless wrought havoc.
Met Eireann, the
Irish National Meteorological Service said, "It will still however bring
violent and destructive winds for a time," Flooding was also expected
"due to either heavy thundery downpours or storm surges in coastal
areas," the service said after issuing a red alert for the whole
country.
Winds
reached 191 kilometres (119 miles) per hour at Fastnet Rock, Ireland's
southernmost point, while the strongest winds recorded onshore were 156
kph (97 mph) at the entrance to Cork Harbour in the southwest.
The
Electricity Supply Board said 330,000 customers were without power, due
to more than 3,200 individual faults on the network.
Ophelia
is the 15th named storm of the 2017 Atlantic season, which is expected
to last until the end of November. Three major hurricanes; Harvey, Irma
and Maria caused catastrophic damage in the Caribbean and the US Gulf
Coast.
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