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Barcelona sports center collapse kills at least 3

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[January 24, 2009]  BARCELONA, Spain (AP) -- Part of a sports center collapsed in high winds Saturday in the northern city of Barcelona, killing at least three children and trapping and injuring others, according to Spanish officials and media reports.

Freak winds gusting to to 160 kph (100 mph) in some places caused at least three other deaths in Spain and France, officials said.

An official with the Barcelona region's Interior Ministry said "many children" were trapped in the debris at the sports center, without offering specific figures. She spoke on condition of anonymity under agency rules.

The local newspaper La Vanguardia reported, citing unnamed municipal officials, that 16 other people were injured. It did not say how many were children.

A woman who said she had seen the accident told Spanish national broadcaster TVE that the children were preparing to play on a baseball field when they took shelter under a viewing stand with a corrugated metal roof. A photograph on La Vanguardia's Web site showed emergency workers gathered around a collapsed brick wall and iron roof.

Elsewhere in Spain, a woman died when a wall fell on her in Barcelona and a traffic officer was killed by a falling tree in northwest Galicia.

A powerful storm also lashed southwestern France, with the state-run electricity provider reporting about a million homes without power and rail authorities halting traffic in the region.

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The government office in France's Landes region announced the first death in France linked to the storm - a driver whose car was crushed by a falling tree, the regional prefecture said.

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie announced that an additional 715 civil security agents would be deployed in the region - on top of the 300 usually there, and that she plans to fly over the area Sunday once the high winds are over.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon, speaking at a meeting of the governing conservatives in Paris, said his thoughts turned "our countrymen in the south of our country who are now facing a very serious storm."

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Rescue teams fanned out as heavy rain and winds of up to 175 kph (109 mph) pounded the coast south of Bordeaux, while the city faced winds of up to 160 kph (99 mph).

French TV showed images including downed power cables, uprooted trees lying across roads, a car crushed under a collapsed wall, and a traffic light post that toppled over.

In Bordeaux's Gironde region, rescuers evacuated 19 residents of a retirement home after its rooftop was swept away. Authorities also evacuated campers from the pine forests in the sandy Landes region to the south.

All flights in Bordeaux and Toulouse were temporarily halted, and authorities in the region ordered a halt to tractor-trailer and tour bus traffic. The national railway operator stopped trains throughout the area.

Authorities in Toulouse ordered public parks shut. Some ski slopes in the south of the area hit were closed. France's national meteorological service said no letup was expected before mid-afternoon Saturday.

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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Paris and Harold Heckle in Madrid contributed to this report.

[Associated Press; By MANU FERNANDEZ]

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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