On Wednesday, Luxembourg woke up to storm Eleanor battering the country, as two trees fell on cars and over 330 calls were made to emergency services in four hours.

As Meteolux, the official Luxembourgish weather agency, had announced, the storm came with heavy rainfalls and gusts of wind of up to 110 kilometres an hour, wreaking havoc on the streets and disrupting traffic.

The first calls to the emergency services related to the storm came in at about 5am and in the first hour over 230 calls were recorded, which is eight times higher than average, the government’s rescue services administration said in a statement.

Between 5am and 9am, 332 calls were made to emergency services, which led to over 170 interventions by rescue services, mostly because of trees blocking roads.

In preparation for the storm, the Fire and Rescue Centres had been informed of this risk and the Central Emergency Rescue 112 strengthened its team of operators from six to nine.

Car and train traffic disturbed

The most disruptions are due to trees, electric poles and sign posts, as well as other objects, blocking the streets.

The Automobile Club Luxembourg is reporting over 35 instances of trees lying in the streets.

Luxembourg’s national rail company CFL also said on Wednesday morning that a number of train services were either delayed or cancelled.

Due to technical incidents, rail traffic is particularly disrupted on lines 50 (Luxembourg – Kleinbettingen – Arlon), 30 (Luxembourg – Wasserbillig – Trier) and 70 (Luxembourg – Rodange-Athus – Longwy), the CFL said in a statement.

A number of bus replacement services were set up to help people complete their journeys.

The rescue services also warned the population to limit their movements as much as possible, to adapt their speed to the weather conditions, and to avoid walking in wooded areas.