London ? Hurricane-force winds and heavy downpours hammered northern Europe on Thursday, killing 27 people and disrupting travel for tens of thousands – including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose plane circled for 15 minutes before landing amid winds gusting to 77 mph.

The storms were among the fiercest in years, ripping off part of the roof at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, toppling a crane in the Netherlands and upending trucks on Europe’s busiest highway.

By evening, weather-related accidents had killed 27 people, including a 2-year-old boy hit by falling brick from a toppled wall in London.

Rice cut short her visit to Berlin in order to leave for London before winds worsened, landing at Heathrow Airport in winds gusting up to 77 mph.

“It’s not often you get winds of that sort of strength that far inland,” said John Hammond of Britain’s weather office. “(Rice) did well to land there, I wouldn’t have fancied doing that.”

German meteorologists recorded gusts up to 118 mph, forcing dozens of flight cancellations, shutting schools and prompting the national railroad to suspend services across a swath of the country.

“We are still at a standstill nationwide,” with only a few trains running, Hans-Georg Zimmermann, the spokesman of the national railroad, Deutsche Bahn, told n-tv television.

Traffic on the Eurostar, the train service connecting Britain with continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel, was suspended after an electrical cable holder fell onto the tracks near the northern French city of Lille, France’s national railway company said.

Two young women try to hold onto an upturned umbrella Thursday in London. Heavy rain and high winds brought chaos to parts of Britain Thursday. The storms will be followed next week by plunging temperatures, snow and widespread frost, forecasters said.

In London, harried commuters struggled through road closures caused by falling debris blown from glass-paneled office buildings and medieval churches.

The city’s slender Millennium Bridge was closed after the suspension structure began swaying dangerously in the wind.

Rail stations across London also were closed, and the evening commute melted into chaos.

Traffic on the M-25 around London, the busiest highway in Europe, was backed up for miles after three trucks were knocked over by a single gust of wind about 1 p.m.

Traffic accidents accounted for many of the fatalities. Ten deaths were reported in the United Kingdom while seven died in Germany; four in the Netherlands, three in the Czech Republic, two in Belgium and one in France.