Storm pounds northern Europe: 14 killed

Denmark, Sweden and the British Isles were worst affected, with 100 people forced to spend the night on a ferry after it ran aground Saturday in southwest Scotland, while a Dutch freighter issued a mayday call off the Danish coast.

The passenger ferry was later floated and towed to its berth after more than 30 hours at sea, with none on board injured, while the 15 crew members of the Dutch cargo ship which got into difficulties were rescued.

At least 11 people were reported dead in Denmark and Sweden, leaving 405,000 households without power, disrupting road and rail traffic and causing heavy damage.

In Britain three people were found dead in Carlisle in northwest England, where one of the worst storms for decades brought flooding and high winds, police said, though they were unable to give the cause of death.

Some people in the town had to be rescued by helicopter from the roof of their houses surrounded by floodwater and cars were seen floating down streets.

Fifteen families had to be airlifted to safety while thousands of other people left their homes on their own initiative, police said.

Emergency services were still looking for two people carried away by floodwater, one by the river Aire at Apperley Bridge near Bradford and another near Forres in Scotland.

In southern Sweden, four motorists were killed when uprooted trees fell on their cars. A fifth was killed by a passing car when he tried to remove a fallen tree from a road, and another man sustained fatal injuries on his farm when bales of hay came crashing down on him during the storm.