Rauli’s gale-force winds and powerful gusts caused widespread damage in Finland on Saturday, disrupting power supplies to tens of thousands of households. In the wake of the storm Sunday morning, some 75,000 homes were still without electricity.
Energy company Elenia said that by Sunday morning it had managed to restore power to between 50,000 and 60,000 customers. Communications director Heini Kuusela-Opas said that the company had sent out five helicopters to survey the damage to its network of power lines.
"We will have more precise information from this during the course of the morning," she added.
In spite of the company’s efforts to remedy the damage caused by the storm, some 38,500 customers were still without electricity Sunday morning - 14,000 were located in the Pirkanmaa region.
"The focal point is clearly Pirkanmaa and central Finland, where we have now deployed the choppers to get fault location data," Kuusela-Opas noted.
Ongoing disruptions to rail services
The storm has also caused major disruptions to rail traffic due to damage to electrical equipment and downed trees on rails. State railway VR has said that rail traffic from Kuopio to Helsinki and from Jyväskylä to Pieksämäki will in part be replaced by buses.
According to Elenia, repairing downed power lines at this time of the year is much easier than during the winter. However the company said it couldn’t promise that all of its customers would have power restored by Sunday evening.
"Of course in these good conditions we will be able to move forward rapidly. During the course of the morning we at Elenia and other companies will get more precise information about where the damage lies."
