'Summer' thunderstorm hits western Germany
April 30, 2018
Emergency services in the western city of Aachen on the border with the Netherlands fielded hundreds of calls on Sunday night, as a thunderstorm hit Germany's westernmost regions in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland Palatinate and Saarland.
There was also hail and heavy winds of up to 75 kilometers an hour (47 mph) in parts of Lower Saxony in the north-west.
There were no reports of anyone seriously hurt, although emergency services said the received hundreds of calls in the night.
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Like a summer storm
Germany's meteorological service, the DWD, said the thunderstorm had come from southern France, Luxembourg and Belgium and swept across western Germany's Eifel region like a summer thunderstorm, with hail and heavy rains, "which are also typical of what we see in a summer thunderstorm," according to a DWD meteorologist.
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On Twitter, the DWD provided a lightning map, clearly showing the storm being concentrated west of the Rhine River.
Police said the storm lasted around 70 minutes, damaging buildings, flooding cellars and streets. Some roads were blocked by collapsed trees, and a major tunnel in Aachen had to be shut off. There were also reports of power cuts.