In Romania, the capital Bucharest and 11 counties were affected on Tuesday by torrential rain and strong wind.
After the violent storm on September 17, that swept through fifteen counties in western, north-western and central Romania and left behind a number of dead and injured and significant material damage, a new bad weather episode took place on Tuesday. This time, the strong wind and heavy rain were more strongly felt in the south and south-east. Two people were injured in the capital Bucharest on Tuesday. A woman was taken to hospital after being hit in the head by flying plaster, while another one suffered injuries when a falling tree hit the taxi she was in.
Emergency units were overstrained, as the wind put down 146 trees and damaged 80 cars. In Bucharest, emergency teams worked all day long to remove parts of the advertising panels, or large pieces of roofs. Similar situations were also reported in other Romanian cities. At national level, military firefighters worked to evacuate water from 25 yards and basements and to remove 167 fallen trees. In the county of Dambovita, the bad weather left over 2 thousand households without electricity. Also, a number of yards were flooded.
The Romanian Black Sea ports were closed down due to severe gales and big waves and port maneuvers were suspended. Traffic was also suspended on the Danube-Black Sea canal. Blizzard was reported in the mountains, at over 2 thousand meters high, where the layer of snow reached 15 centimeters. Mountain rescuers have warned tourists that access on several mountain routes is restricted. Transalpina, the highest-altitude road in Romania has also been closed. A yellow code alert for strong wind was in place on Tuesday for western Romania. In Timisoara, a city where the effects of the violent storm of September 17 are still visible, new damages were reported on Tuesday.
Air traffic was also disturbed. Two flights from Craiova to Rome and Bologne, respectively, were delayed due to bad weather. The serious effects of September’s violent storm in western Romania prompted the Government to take measures to prevent such situations in the future. Consequently, the Government approved the setting up of Ro-Alert, an early warning system for citizens found in dangerous areas, irrespective of the type of danger, who should receive an alert message on their mobile phones, in real time. State Secretary with the Romanian Home Affairs Ministry, Raed Arafat, said he was hoping that the testing of the new system would start towards the end of the year.
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