LONDON, Oct 27: Seventeen people were killed by falling trees and masonry as gale-force winds swept across western Europe on Sunday, causing widespread damage and chaos on transport networks.

The worst casualties were in Britain, where six people were killed in separate incidents.

A 22-year-old woman and her 13- and nine-year-old sisters were killed when a tree fell on their car in the southern city of Oxford, police said.

Two young children and a man were killed separately by falling trees in East Anglia, and at least three more people were injured in the western county of Shropshire.

In the Netherlands, four people died in separate incidents and three others went missing in surfing accidents or after being blown into the North Sea, police and the Dutch news agency ANP said. A seven-year-old girl was in critical condition after being hit by falling branches.

A Dutch woman was killed in Germany and a man and child from the same family seriously injured when their car was hit in the western town of Bocholt, according to the region’s interior ministry.

French authorities said two people died and two others were seriously injured in a similar incident outside Paris, and a man died in the northern town of Caumont when winds demolished part of his house that was under construction.

In Austria, a retired German couple died when a tree fell on them as they were out walking near the central town of Salzburg, police said.

A 31-year-old woman was killed and her husband and baby injured by a falling tree near Switzerland’s northwestern town of Arlesheim.

Parks were closed to the public in France and Belgium, where authorities warned winds could reach up to 140 kilometres per hour, warning people to stay indoors as the weather also wreaked havoc on transport networks.

Near the Belgian town of Bruges a 13-year-old rollerscater died when he was blown away by a wind crashing into a building machine, the interior ministry said.

Ferry services from the two countries’ north coasts were suspended as coastal winds topped 130 kilometres an hour in some parts of the Channel, contributing to a collision that damaged a British Royal Navy frigate and a P and O ferry in Britain’s southern Portsmouth Harbour, causing no injuries.

P and O also said one of its passenger ferries was stranded off the French coast, where strong winds were preventing it from docking at Calais.

A Calais port official said the vessel and its passengers were not in danger, but added that the winds were not expected to subside before 9:00 pm.—AFP