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Strong winds across Sweden cause traffic chaos

TT/The Local
TT/The Local - [email protected]
Strong winds across Sweden cause traffic chaos
Strong winds have blown over trees in Skåne, causing a traffic accident in Kristianstad municipality. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

Many areas of Sweden are reporting strong winds, which have led to cancelled train services as well as traffic accidents.

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Strong winds across Sweden on Thursday night and Friday morning have caused cancellations and delays in train services, TT reports.

The train company Vy has cancelled all services between Kiruna-Narvik, as well as Östersund-Storlien until Friday morning. SJ has also cancelled services west of Östersund.

In southern Sweden, Trafikverket has cancelled services on many routes due to strong winds. These include services between Nässjö-Vetlanda, Ystad-Simrishamn and Kristianstad-Karlskrona starting at 4am on Friday morning.

Train services are expected to start up again at noon on Friday for some services, with others recommencing at 4am on Saturday.

P4 Väst reports that in western Sweden, services are not running between Uddevalla and Borås, as well as on the Bohus line. Ferry traffic is also affected.

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Strong winds have also blown a number of trees down in Skåne, one of which has caused a traffic accident in Kristianstad municipality. A tree was blown over on to the road, where three people stopped to saw it into pieces and were hit by a car driving into the tree, police reports state. They have now been taken to hospital by ambulance.

In Gotland, the wind caused multiple power cuts on Thursday night and early on Friday morning, local media reports. At one point, 3,000 households had no power. 4,600 households had no power for just over an hour on Thursday night.

The winds currently affecting Sweden are part of the same storms which have been causing flooding, traffic problems and school closures in northern Sweden over the past few days.

"Even though it's most windy in the mountains, there will also be difficult weather on lower terrain, and it looks like this will continue throughout Friday," Alexandra Ohlsson, a meteorologist at SMHI, told newswire TT.

"There will also be extremely strong gusts of wind in some areas, like Skåne," she continued.

The weather should be calmer on Saturday, Ohlsson says: "What we're seeing now is the end of the bad weather. The wind is going to culminate in the south. Snowfall will decrease during the afternoon and evening, and Saturday will be much calmer."

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