Second victim killed in Storm Eunice after tree in Diemen falls; Amsterdam says “stay inside”

Heavy winds during Storm Eunice felled a tree in Diemen, which then landed on a car at about 3:30 p.m. on Friday. “A person who was in the car died as a result,” the Amsterdam-Amstelland fire department confirmed.

It was the second report of a person killed due to the storm. The other person died when a tree fell on them in Amsterdam-Zuid shortly before the incident on Weesperstraat in Diemen. The storm, which triggered a Code Red weather alert for several provinces including Noord-Holland, made landfall in the Netherlands about an hour earlier.

Soon after authorities confirmed the second fatality, police in Amsterdam issued a plea on Twitter asking people to take shelter and remain there. “The storm is occasionally very violent, so stay indoors. Don't go out on the street anymore. It's really life threatening,” police said.

The police also said that the 112 emergency phone lines were jammed with calls, and asked that people only call for emergency services in cases where the life of a person or animal is in danger.

Rijkswaterstaat, the country’s infrastructure agency, sent out an alert earlier in the day warning people in areas covered by the Code Red warning to remain indoors until the storm passes. Most of the rest of the country was covered by a Code Orange alert, with a recommendation that people stay inside unless absolutely necessary. Limburg was the only region placed at the yellow warning level, and no region was at the all-clear Code Green.

Even in Limburg, gusts of wind of up to 90 km/h were recorded. The strongest gust of wind in the Netherlands by 5 p.m. registered at 145 km/h near Meerkerk, Utrecht. In the Amsterdam region, the top wind speed measured 126 km/h.