Hurricane strength winds battered Britain and the Netherlands onMonday, killing five people, cutting power and forcing thecancellation of hundreds of flights and train journeys before thestorm barrelled further into mainland Europe.

Gusts of up to 99 mph lashed southern England andWales inthe worst storm recorded in Britain in a decade, while Denmark andSweden were bracing for the impact there.

A 17-year-old girl was killed when a tree fell onto her homewhile she slept in Kent, southeast of London, while a man in his50s was killed when a tree crushed his car in the town of Watford,just north of the capital.

A man and a woman were found dead in west London after severalhouses were damaged in a suspected gas explosion on a street wherethe storm blew a tree down. London police said the tree may havedamaged gas pipes, causing the explosion.

A crane smashed into the Cabinet Office, a ministry in the heartof London, forcing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg to cancel anews conference.

Thin volumes on London's financial markets suggested manytraders had been stuck at home, along with millions of othercommuters who would normally head into London.

Heavy winds also swept across the low-lying Netherlands,shutting down all train traffic to Amsterdam. Hurricane-force windsof more than 150 kph were recorded on one of the islands off thenorthern Dutch coast.

Uprooted trees smashed cars, homes and sank a houseboat along anAmsterdam canal. Roofs were blown off buildings and severalhouseboats were ripped off their moorings, police said.

A woman was killed and two people were seriously hurt by fallingtrees in the Dutch capital and a ferry carrying 1,000 people fromthe English city of Newcastle was unable to dock in the port ofIJmuiden and returned to sea, RTL television said.

Fifty flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport were cancelled andRotterdam Port, Europe's busiest, said incoming and outgoingvessels were delayed.

In France, winds topping 100 kph struck the north and northwest,felling trees, whipping up seas and cutting power supplies toaround 75,000 homes, according to the ERDF electricity distributioncompany.

Helicopters and a sea-rescue team searched for a 47-year-oldwoman swept out to sea by a wave during a cliff sortie on BelleIle, an island off Brittany where high winds generated waves of 5-6metres, according to the coastguard in the region.

COUNTING COST

Homes and businesses were counting the cost of the damage as aBritish Met Office spokeswoman said the worst of the storm inBritain had passed by late morning as it headed eastward.

Some 486,000 properties in Britain were left without power, UKPower Networks said, in one of the worst storms to hit Englandsince the 1987 “Great Storm” which killed 18 people and felledaround 15 million trees. By mid-afternoon, 115,000 properties werestill without power.

The Association of British Insurers said it was too early togive figures on insured loss. A storm in Britain in 1987 stormcaused 2.2 billion pounds of damage in today's terms (1 billion in1987 money). The last comparable storm to today's was in 2002, aMet Office spokesman said.

“The issue for us will be flooding more than the wind and itwill become clearer this afternoon,” Philip Moore, group financedirector at LV, which insures more than 500,000 homes in Britain,said. “So far it is not as bad as '87.”

Northern Europe was preparing for the impact. In Denmark,several bridges were closed as the storm hit the west coast ofJutland and was expected to move towards the capital ofCopenhagenduring the afternoon.

Sweden cancelled all passenger trains in the south of thecountry ahead of the storm's arrival.

Transport was hard hit in Britain. As the working week began,London's commuter train service was shut while several Tube lineswere suspended due trees toppling onto the tracks. The Severnmotorway bridge linking England to South Wales was also closed.

London's Heathrow airport said 130 flights were cancelled, themajority between 0600 and 1100 GMT and told passengers to checkwith their airlines before travelling.

Passenger Nozipho Mtshede said she was going to miss herfather's funeral in Zimbabwe due to her flight being delayed eighthours: “I won't make it because they can't keep him so I'll have tomiss his burial.”

Volumes in the gilt market were around half normal levels astrading floors managed with a skeleton staff. “By 9 o'clock onlysix out of 25 of us were in,” said Marc Ostwald, fixed incomestrategist at Monument Securities. “It's been a fantastically quietday.”