North Sea storm causes train, ferry cancellations in Denmark, Norway

A storm over the North Sea on Friday led to dozens of cancellations of train and ferry connections in northern Denmark and southern Norway, with the Danish Meteorological Institute saying gusts of hurricane force can be expected.

The storm, named Otto, is set to move east over Sweden and the Baltic Sea. In Finland, authorities said they were also expecting rain, or rain mixed with snow, and that there could power outages over the weekend.

Ferries in southern Norway were canceled with “a significant” number of passengers and goods will be affected by the storm.

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“We should of course have avoided this, but Otto is not a normal weather type, so this does not happen very often,” CEO of the Norwegian ferry company Color Line Erik Brynhildsbakken told the Norwegian news agency NTB.

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In Denmark, the stormy weather came at the end of a holiday week with many people traveling. Operators were forced to cancel trains in large parts of the country and authorities advised against crossing bridges in lighter vehicles, including on the link that ties Copenhagen to the Swedish city of Malmo.

The inhabitants of high-rises from the late 1950s with up to 13 floors in a Copenhagen neighborhood sitting atop of a hill were evacuated as a precaution.

The same storm hit Scotland and northern England, with wind gusts of up to 80 mph that left tens of thousands of homes without power. Trains were disrupted and some flights canceled. Toppled trucks snarled traffic on a main road linking London to Scotland.