Storm Conall: Woman, 19, killed after gust topples tree, landing on Gelderland cyclist
This article was updated.
A bicyclist was left dead after a tree came down on top of her as Storm Conall passed across the Netherlands on Wednesday. The incident happened in Lochem just after 7:15 p.m., police confirmed.
The woman was identified as a 19-year-old resident of Lochem, a small city of just over 34,000 people in Gelderland. "She was probably on her bicycle when the tree came down in the storm," police said. "Further investigation into the cause will take place tomorrow."
First responders were sent to the Koopsdijk, a road in the town near the Overijssel. "Assistance at the scene was to no avail, the person unfortunately died," police said in a statement. The road was still closed two hours after the incident as emergency services workers tried to remove the tree from the roadway.
At the time of the incident, the province of Overijssel was under a Code Orange weather warning for strong wind, while the neighboring province of Gelderland was under the softer Code Yellow warning.
Weather records from a nearby monitoring station showed that gusts of wind in the area ranged from about 73 to 76 kilometers per hour around the time witnesses called emergency services about the incident in Lochem. Sustained winds were measured at around 46 kilometers per hour.
Although police were hesitant to definitively identify the storm as the reason the tree toppled over, it was hardly an isolated incident. Emergency services crews in the area were racing from one damage report to another as Storm Conall struck the area.
Storm Conall was officially designated a severe storm, the first such storm in 16 months. It is the sixth storm to hit the Netherlands this year, and the second to make landfall during the autumn season.
A total of 69 severe storms have struck the Netherlands since 1910, when wind records were first monitored regularly.
