Five of France's 95 departments were placed on red alert for only the second time since the emergency system was introduced in 2001 and 69 others on orange alert.

Winds were expected to reach up to 150 kilometres an hour (95 mph), according to weather service Meteo France -- but not the record 200-kmh levels of a deadly 1999 hurricane that battered the country.

A 10-year-old boy was killed by a falling tree as he played football in northern Portugal, the country's civil protection service said on its website.

A man was killed by a falling tree branch in the French town of Luchon, in the southern Pyrenees region, police said.

And in Spain, an 82-year-old woman was killed when a wall collapsed on her in the town of Vilar de Barrio in the northwestern region of Galicia, regional authorities said.

The storm, dubbed Xynthia, brought gusts of up to 150 kmh in the red zone departments on the west coast of France, local authorities said.

Some 800,000 households were without electricity in western France due to the storm early Sunday but only slight damage was reported initially, mostly due to falling branches.

The powerful winds and heavy rains hit Spain's Canary Islands archipelago late on Friday, forcing the cancellation of about 20 flights, leaving some 10,000 homes without power but causing no major damage or casualties.

The storm swept northeast into Galicia late on Saturday afternoon, where some 27,000 households were without electricity, regional authorities said.

Rail services were cancelled in Galicia as well as in the northern regions of Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country and parts of Castilla y Leon, where the storm left some 63,000 households without power.

Spanish meteorological agency Aemet placed all five regions under the alert level "red", the highest on its four-level scale.

In the Basque Country, where power was cut to some 30,000 homes, a construction crane crashed onto a three-storey house in the town of Abaltzisketa, causing major damage but no casualties, regional authorities said.

The storm developed in the Atlantic off the Portuguese island of Madeira, still reeling from the flash floods sparked by heavy rains that wrecked the centre of the capital Funchal and killed 42 people a week ago.

Despite the violent winds, "the night was calm and normal", the Madeira fire service said, and traffic at the main airport on Saturday morning was unaffected.

The country's fire service was called to intervene on more than 4,200 occasions due to incidents related to the storm, mostly to remove fallen trees, which blocked roads and rail lines.

As the storm gusted north, Meteo France said it would move rapidly, starting in the south and hitting many regions before it made its way towards Denmark by Sunday evening.

Municipal authorities in Paris ordered all parks and cemeteries closed on Sunday, when Meteo France predicted winds of up to 120 kmh for the region around the French capital.

Nearly 1,200 heavy trucks were blocked in southern France due to the closure of the Spanish border and the French state railway SNCF said it had cancelled a dozen trains linking Paris with the southwest and Spain.

Several coastal villages in southwest France were flooded under the combined effect of Xynthia and high tides. A gendarme in the Vendee region told AFP by phone: "There are people on the roofs, we're overwhelmed."

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