BERLIN, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Hurricane Sebastian continued to rage over Northern Germany on Thursday, after having already caused widespread material damage and leaving at least two dead.
Railway commuters faced lengthy delays on their morning journey to work, with some lines in the Hamburg area seizing to operate entirely.
Hurricane "Sebastian" has achieved wind speeds of up to 150 kilometers per hour, uprooting large numbers of trees in the process. A 53-year-old man in North-Rhine Westphalia suffered deadly injuries after a tree collapsed on to him.
In Hamburg, a man was killed by falling scaffolding at a construction site. Another man in a wheelchair drowned in the city's Elbe river, although police are currently still refusing to rule out a suicide in his case.
Due to the high-volume of weather-related deployments, Berlin firefighters temporarily declared a state of emergency on Wednesday night.
The German State Railways told press that hundreds of employees were occupied with resolving storm-related damage and clearing debris left on or near tracks. Temporary accommodation had been made available or passenger stranded during their journeys.
In the meanwhile, the German Meteorological Service has warned against a spreading of storm systems to South Western Germany on Wednesday. The states of Hesse, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland faced the prospect of heavy rain, flooding and landslides.
