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London Eye forced to close after being battered by 70mph Storm Henk winds

A family were left terrified as the London Eye was battered by strong winds on Tuesday (January 2).

David Nock, from Bournemouth, was on the tourist attraction when Storm Henk's 70mph winds began to howl through the structure. Despite this, he says that before boarding, London didn't feel all that windy.

He said: "We got on, started to move and it was stop starting on the way up. As we got to the 12 o’clock top it stopped. The wind really started to howl.

"The wind was so strong it actually ripped an access hatch off the top of the pod we were in. You can imagine, it got very noisy and the wind was blowing and it was slightly terrifying."

The London Eye has denied that it was ripped open, but that a safety mechanism activated to get everyone safely back to the ground.

Staff managed to get the London Eye evacuated, and closed it soon after.

A spokesperson for the lastminute.com London Eye said: "Due to disruption from adverse weather conditions yesterday, we took the decision to close the lastminute.com London Eye for a brief period. The safety of our guests and staff is our number one priority, and we have multiple safety procedures in place on the pods.

"Following an isolated technical issue, our expert technical team immediately ensured that guests safely disembarked and conducted further rigorous checks before reopening the attraction that evening. We can confirm that no parts of the pod detached from the main structure and that no guests were injured. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to the guests during their visit."

Elsewhere in the capital, the wind saw scaffolding ripped from buildings .

The Met Office issued a rare 'danger to life' warning yesterday due to fears of falling debris. The warning came after the meteorologist agency had issued a less severe yellow weather warning for the South East on January 1 but upgraded it to an amber one for most of London and large parts of East Anglia.


 

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