At least 64 people were killed across northern Europe at the weekend as record-breaking winds of up to 213 k.p.h. raged through the region.
Thirty-one people were believed to have died in France, 15 in Germany, 11 in Switzerland, five in Britain and two in Belgium by 10 p.m. last night. The toll was expected to rise further.
Winds of up to 180 k.p.h. (108 m.p.h.) raged across France, leaving 1.5 million homes without electricity.
The gales, among the worst in living memory, uprooted trees and toppled cranes in the north and east of the country.
Police appealed to the public to stay indoors and the fire department said it had been called out 10,000 times in the Paris area alone.
The state railway company, SNCF, cancelled virtually all train services through northern France, leaving tens of thousands of travellers stranded.
Paris's two airports were ordered to close for several hours yesterday morning and there was only a fraction of the usual number of take-offs and landings when they reopened.
Most of the deaths occurred when cars were hit by flying objects or the driver lost control. Two people were killed when a roof collapsed at a Christmas lunch and several drowned after being blown into harbours or canals.
Three huge cranes were blown over in Paris, injuring several people and crushing cars below. Winds were so high that police at one point barred vehicles and pedestrians from the Champs Elysees because of flying roof tiles.
The high winds also forced authorities to shut seven of the city's 14 Metro lines as well as nearly all commuter train services to and from the suburbs.
Gale force winds also swept through Switzerland, with gusts of 50 to 100 k.p.h. (3060 m.p.h.) in low-lying areas and up to 200 k.p.h. on top of the Jungfrau peak in central Switzerland.
In the popular ski resort of Crans Montana, one skier was killed and four injured, two seriously, when an uprooted tree crashed into a cable and sent the gondola in which they were travelling plunging to the ground.
Swiss media reported at least eight other weather-related deaths across the country, including an elderly man blown off the roof of his home south of Zurich. In south-western Germany, six people died, most of them in road accidents caused by fallen trees, including three occupants of a car hit by a tree in a village near Ettlingen.
The weather also caused delays to flights in Stuttgart and disrupted trains to and from Switzerland. In Austria eight people were injured, two seriously, when a British bus skidded off a snow-covered road and tumbled 15 metres down a mountainside in Tyrol.
In Britain, five people were reported killed in weather-related incidents since Christmas Eve and more than 100 houses in southern and central England were hit by flooding.
The Environment Agency said the threat of further rain could create wide-scale flooding along many rivers. The southern counties of Sussex and Kent were most vulnerable to flooding after suffering 48 hours of almost continuous rain. High tides forced the evacuation of about 200 people in east Sussex on Christmas Day.
The lower reaches of the River Severn were on a red flood alert, with its waters threatening properties and land. In Wales, large stretches of the River Wye were on alert.
Winds and rain yesterday hampered efforts to clean parts of France's Atlantic coastline threatened by oil from the sunken tanker Erika, an official said.
Gusts of wind of up to 150 km per hour threw patches of oil onto beaches from Finistere on the south coast of Brittany down to the Loire estuary on the western Atlantic coast, official sources said.
Volunteers came out in force to help rescue oiled sea-birds and raise oyster-beds to keep them beyond the reach of the pollution.