A woman has died after being crushed by a tree in high winds caused by the remains of Hurricane Gonzalo.
The tree and part of a wall fell on the pedestrian as she walked down Kensington Road, near Hyde Park Barracks, at 11.40am.
A spokesperson for the London Ambulance Service said paramedics tried to resuscitate her but she died at the scene.
Elsewhere,
three people, including one woman in a wheelchair, were injured by a
fallen tree at Southwick Recreation Ground in West Sussex just before
10am.
The weather has also caused widespread travel disruption,
particularly at Heathrow where more than 100 flights in and out of the
airport have been cancelled as the weather system moves across Britain,
bringing high winds and heavy rain.
With the “flow rate” of
arrivals and departures likely to be reduced, airlines have been asked
to make pre-emptive cancellations between 10am and 9pm.
British Airways has made the majority of weather-related
cancellations - all of them domestic and European flights. The
worst-affected destinations, with more than one cancellation, are
Barcelona, Belfast, Edinburgh, Geneva, Madrid, Manchester and Newcastle.
All
Lufthansa flights to and from Frankfurt and Munich have been cancelled,
but this is nothing to do with the weather. Pilots at the German
airline are on day two of a strike. The walkout yesterday disrupted
200,000 travellers yesterday, and the repercussions are continuing this
morning. Flights from Manchester to the two key German hubs have also
been cancelled.
Other airlines have cancelled many fewer flights.
Aer Lingus has cancelled a departure to Dublin, Virgin Atlantic to
Edinburgh, KLM to Amsterdam and SAS Scandinavian Airlines to Oslo. The
only transatlantic cancellation so far is Air Canada’s departure to St
John’s in Newfoundland.
Around 10,000 travellers are affected so
far, with thousands more potentially at risk. Conveniently, Gonzalo has
arrived on a Tuesday, the quietest day of the week for air travel, so
plenty of space is available on other flights.
Passengers should already have been contacted by the airlines and
been offered alternatives. The airline must provide meals and, if
necessary, accommodation, but not financial compensation is due because
it is not the airline’s fault.
Elsewhere, the weather caused
delays of up to 40 minutes to services between London and Luton, while
another broken-down train - this time in Devon - meant delays of up to
60 minutes to journeys between Taunton and Exeter St David.
A
Network Rail spokesman said: "Strong winds, torrential rain and large
quantities of fallen leaves are making conditions difficult on the
railway today.
A number of ferry crossings between Holyhead, North
Wales, and Dublin were also cancelled due to the adverse weather, said
Irish Ferries.
North West Motorway Police said they had received
many reports of standing water which led to hazardous driving conditions
in the region.

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