Twenty injured by tornado in Birmingham, UK
Friday, July 29, 2005
Officials said that at least 20 people were injured as a mini-tornado (more correctly, a whirlwind) swept through Birmingham on Thursday. People made temporarily homeless by the storm sought shelter at a local university.
Some homes could be beyond repair, and may have to be bulldozed.
The British Meteorological Office has estimated that the tornado had either a T3 or a T4 rating (Or F1 on the Fujita Scale), which would mean that wind speeds of between 93 and 130 miles per hour swept through the UK's second-largest city. An area of approximately one km² in Kings Heath was damaged.
A Met Office spokesperson told the BBC: "We have an average of 33 reports of tornadoes in the UK each year but these are especially rare in built-up areas and there has not been one of this strength in many years."
Birmingham City Council set up emergency shelters in Aston University for those whose homes were damaged. According to a spokesperson from the Ambulance Service, 20 patients were removed to Heartlands Hospital, Selly Oak Hospital, and Dudley.
Sources
[edit]- "Tornado homes could be bulldozed" — BBC News, July 29, 2005
- "Tornado injures 19 in Birmingham" — BBC News, July 28, 2005
The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication. Please note that this only applies to Wikinews content created prior to September 25, 2005. All content created after that date is released under a Creative Commons license which is mentioned at the bottom of each article. This is currently the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. |