Storm prompts forest warning as 1,400 Varėna consumers lose power

A severe storm hit Varėna district municipality in southern Lithuania on Saturday, damaging property and disrupting electricity supplies, LRT reported. No injuries have been reported.

Residents have been urged to stay out of forests because power lines have fallen and trees are suspended in dangerous positions. The municipality warned people not to approach downed electrical wires and to report hazardous situations to emergency services.

About 1,400 electricity customers were without power on Sunday morning, with 71 outages recorded in the municipality. The number of affected customers was changing as repairs continued. Three ESO crews were working to restore supplies.

Varėna firefighters had been called out 21 times to remove fallen trees and help electricity workers reach damaged power lines. Strong winds also damaged roads and residential areas, bringing down trees and branches and making traffic difficult in several places.

The Varėna district municipality’s emergency operations centre was activated on Saturday evening. A meeting held on Sunday brought together local ward leaders and representatives of responsible institutions to assess the situation, discuss the storm damage and coordinate the next steps.

The latest storm follows another severe storm that hit the municipality in early August. Trees and electricity poles were brought down, while a roughly two-kilometre stretch of road near Noruliai village was blocked by fallen trees. Traffic there was severely restricted and, in some places, impossible.

At the farmstead of partisan Juozas Jakavonis-Tigras in Kasčiūnai village, the storm damaged the partisan commanders’ headquarters. According to his daughter, parliament member Angelė Jakavonytė, every tree near the headquarters was lost, including an oak that had stood at the farmstead for about 200 years. Roofs, a car and apple trees were also damaged.