Heavy Storms In Europe Kill 6, Injure Scores

(AP) Heavy storms hit parts of Europe, killing at least six people, injuring scores and damaging houses, according to media reports Saturday.

Southern Poland was hardest hit, with three deaths and 34 injuries when a tornado and heavy rain storms late Friday tore the roofs off homes, knocked down trees and overturned vehicles.

Two of those killed were in the southern province of Silesia, where a man near Czestochowa died after a tree crashed into his vacation home and a woman was crushed by the ceiling of her house in Rusinowice. Separately, a woman in the central city of Lodz was electrocuted by wires pulled ripped off by heavy winds.

In the Italian Alps, a guide found two bodies on the Monte Rosa peak in the Aosta region, at an altitude of 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) on Saturday. Authorities said the victims, a man from the Netherlands and another man from Britain, apparently froze to death during a storm that hit the mountain on Friday.

Local Alpine rescue service personnel told Sky TG24 TV that the men had set out late Friday morning to climb the mountain, despite storm warnings. Authorities were working to establish their identities.

Meanwhile, one death was reported in Austria, where a 41-year-old woman was killed Friday when she was hit by a falling tree in a small village in the province of Styria, the Austria Press Agency reported.

The woman was part of a group of hikers taking cover from a hailstorm when the tree collapsed in a forest in St. Stefan.

(Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)