Bad weather, wind and hail disrupt Liberation Day festivals

A number of Tuesday’s Liberation Day festivals were disrupted or delayed by the strong winds and hail storms which swept into the Netherlands from the south.

The KNMI weather bureau issued a code yellow weather warning for the entire country and festival goers were warned to take waterproof clothing rather than umbrellas.

The traditional march past in Wageningen took place 30 minutes later than planned and plans to recreate food droppings by parachute were cancelled altogether, the Telegraaf reported.

In Assen and Almere, the festival starts were delayed by several hours to allow the bad weather to pass.

One woman at a festival in Roermond was injured when part of a market stall blew off and hit her on the head. The event was halted for a time because of the poor weather conditions. The Haarlem show was also paused for a time because of the strong winds and heavy rain.

According to weather bureau weeronline.nl, the storm brought at least 60,000 lightning strikes. The strongest wind so far was 101kph recorded in Eindhoven.

RTL news carried photographs of huge hail stones said to have fallen in some parts of the country.

In Amsterdam, plans to reconstruct a temporary bridge over the IJ, were cancelled because of the rain. The plan had been to recreate the pontoon bridge used during the last winter of World War II to help the city’s hungry inhabitants reach farms in the north.

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