Three people have died in weather-related incidents in France and Spain after a storm hit the region, officials have said.
Roads were flooded and trees were uprooted as a result of the storm, which left thousands of people without power.
High winds and hard rain forced the cancellations of flights, trains and ferries yesterday and brought chaos to roads in southern France, northern Spain and parts of Portugal.
Spanish officials said that a woman died after the roof of an industrial warehouse collapsed on her, while French officials have confirmed that a person died after falling from a ladder in their garden, a day after a truck driver was killed when a tree smashed through his windscreen.
Dozens more were also injured in weather-related incidents in Spain, and a viaduct in Portugal partially collapsed because of flooding.
French forecasters said the storm, named Nils, was "unusually strong" and France's electricity distributor said it had mobilised around 3,000 workers as it battled to reconnect households to the grid.
"Enedis has restored service to 50% of the 900,000 customers who were without electricity," it wrote around 6am local time.
"Flooding complicates repairs because the fields are waterlogged and some roads are blocked," Enedis crisis director Herve Champenois said at a press briefing yesterday.
Residents across the south of France were shocked at the storm's ferocity.
"I've never seen anything like it," said one resident in the city of Perpignan. "A tree almost fell on my car - two seconds more and it would have."
Forecasters have said that the storm had moved eastwards away from French territory during yesterday, though some areas were still on alert for flooding.
