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Met Éireann warns of more strong winds

Small pockets of the country remain without electricity and phone services
Small pockets of the country remain without electricity and phone services

A clean-up operation is continuing following yesterday's storms in the north and northwest, with power being restored to most homes.

Met Éireann has warned of more high winds tonight with gusts of up to 120km/h in some places.

It says that exposed or hilly areas of Connacht and Ulster will be worst affected by the winds.

Westerly gales or strong gales are expected this afternoon on all coastal waters and on the Irish Sea.

The ESB has warned that some households may experience temporary outages throughout the day as crews work to repair some faults that were temporarily fixed yesterday.

Eircom has also been working to fix over 5,000 faults reported on its telecommunications network.

Engineers from Northern Ireland Electricity worked through the night to restore power to customers after supplies were disrupted there by yesterday's storms.

At one point, 35,000 homes and businesses were without power.

Some train, bus and ferry services were disrupted by the bad weather yesterday, with a number of flights also delayed. However, normal services have since resumed.

Storms have also caused widespread damage elsewhere across northern Europe.

The ESB is to send 56 staff to western Scotland tomorrow to help electricity companies reconnect customers.

Tens of thousands of homes are reported to be still without electricity.

ESB staff have already provided assistance to Northern Ireland Electricity to reconnect customers in the North.

ESB Corporate Communications Manager Brian Montayne says the move is part of an agreement reached between electricity providers in Ireland and in the UK.

Around 11,000 homes and businesses are still without power in Scotland after high winds hit the region yesterday.

Several ferries were cancelled in Denmark as the worst storm since 2005 hit the north of the country, leaving hundreds of people stranded.

Some roofs were blown off buildings, trees came down and many roads were flooded.

The winds overturned trucks and damaged houses in Germany and some transport services were disrupted.