Trains, ferries cancelled as storm hits northern Europe

■ COPENHAGEN

A POWERFUL storm over the North Sea hit northern Europe and led to dozens of train and ferry cancellations yesterday in northern Denmark and southern Norway as the Danish Meteorological Institute forecast hurricane-force wind gusts.

The storm, named Otto, was set to move east over Sweden and the Baltic Sea. In Finland, authorities said there could be power outages over the weekend.

Norwegian meteorologist on duty Håkon Mjelstad told Norwegian newspaper VG that a 'fairly strong' low-pressure system was behind the storm.

Ferries in southern Norway were cancelled. Some 5,000 passengers will have to wait until at least today to take ferries between northern Denmark and southern Norway, Danish broadcaster DR said.

'We should, of course, have avoided this, but Otto is not a normal weather type, so this does not happen very often,' Erik Brynhildsbakken, CEO of Norwegian ferry company Color Line, told Norwegian news agency NTB.

The stormy weather came at the end of a holiday week in Denmark. Operators were forced to cancel trains in large parts of the country and authorities advised against crossing bridges in lighter vehicles, including the span that links Copenhagen to the Swedish city of Malmo.

Some 280 residents of three buildings from the late 1950s that sit atop a hill in Copenhagen were evacuated as a precaution.

-AP

FURIOUS: A powerful storm named Otto arrives at Hirtshals in Northern Jutland, Denmark, yesterday. The storm has led to dozens of train and ferry cancellations in northern Denmark and southern Norway. -Photos: AP