WARSAW: Ten people were killed and dozens injured as violent storms slammed Central Europe overnight to Friday, felling trees and electricity poles, ripping off roofs and causing local flooding.
Western and south-western Poland were hardest hit, with hurricane-force winds reaching 130-kilometres-per-hour (80 miles-per-hour) in some areas.
"Eight people died in all," Poland's national fire brigade spokesman Pawel Fratczak told media.
He said 82 people were seriously injured and required medical attention and that most deaths were caused by falling trees.
Those killed included a 24-year-old pregnant woman in Chojne near Sieradz, central Poland, who died when a tree branch crashed onto her car. Two children, aged 8 and 13, who were also in the car survived unscathed.
The most recent death was reported after the body of a 67-year-old man who disappeared Thursday evening was found Friday, crushed beneath a tree in a park in Legnica, southwest Poland, local police said.
In Krotoszyn, western Poland, seventeen people were injured when a broken high voltage power line fell on them, Fratczak said. Six suffered serious burns.
High winds also claimed two lives and injured dozens in the neighbouring Czech Republic.
A 75-year-old woman was killed in the northern town of Hradek nad Nisou by falling tree branches, while the body of a man presumed drowned was found after a boat capsized on a river south of the Czech capital Prague.
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