Poland hardest hit by European storms

Heavy storms hit parts of Europe, killing six and injuring scores of people and damaging houses, according to reports today.

In the Italian Alps, a guide found the body of a British man and a man from the Netherlands on the Monte Rosa peak in the Aosta region, at an altitude of 13,000 feet.

Authorities said the victims apparently froze to death during a storm that hit the mountain.

Local Alpine rescue service staff said the men had set out late yesterday morning to climb the mountain, despite storm warnings.

Southern Poland was hardest hit by the storms, with three deaths and 34 injuries when a tornado and heavy rain storms late last night 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 holiday 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 ripped off by heavy winds.

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

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