* Winds of 99 mph recorded in southern England
* Heathrow cancels 130 flights in high winds
* Strong winds strike France, Netherlands
By Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Anthony Deutsch
LONDON/AMSTERDAM, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Hurricane strengthwinds battered Britain and the Netherlands on Monday, killingfive people, cutting power and forcing the cancellation ofhundreds of flights and train journeys before the stormbarrelled further into mainland Europe.
Gusts of up to 99 mph (160 kph) lashed southern England andWales in the worst storm recorded in Britain in a decade, whileDenmark and Sweden were bracing for the impact there.
A 17-year-old girl was killed when a tree fell onto her homewhile she slept in Kent, southeast of London, while a man in his50s was killed when a tree crushed his car in the town ofWatford, just north of the capital.
A man and a woman were found dead in west London afterseveral houses were damaged in a suspected gas explosion on astreet where the storm blew a tree down. London police said thetree may have damaged gas pipes, causing the explosion.
A crane smashed into the Cabinet Office, a ministry in theheart of London, forcing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg tocancel a news conference.
Thin volumes on London's financial markets suggested manytraders had been stuck at home, along with millions of othercommuters who would normally head into London.
Heavy winds also swept across the low-lying Netherlands,shutting down all train traffic to Amsterdam. Hurricane-forcewinds of more than 150 kph were recorded on one of the islandsoff the northern Dutch coast.
Uprooted trees smashed cars, homes and sank a houseboatalong an Amsterdam canal. Roofs were blown off buildings andseveral houseboats were ripped off their moorings, police said.
A woman was killed and two people were seriously hurt byfalling trees in the Dutch capital and a ferry carrying 1,000people from the English city of Newcastle was unable to dock inthe port of IJmuiden and returned to sea, RTL television said.
Fifty flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport were cancelledand Rotterdam Port, Europe's busiest, said incoming and outgoingvessels were delayed.
In France, winds topping 100 kph struck the north andnorthwest, felling trees, whipping up seas and cutting powersupplies to around 75,000 homes, according to the ERDFelectricity distribution company.
Helicopters and a sea-rescue team searched for a 47-year-oldwoman swept out to sea by a wave during a cliff sortie on BelleIle, an island off Brittany where high winds generated waves of5-6 metres, according to the coastguard in the region.
COUNTING COST
Homes and businesses were counting the cost of the damage asa British Met Office spokeswoman said the worst of the storm inBritain had passed by late morning as it headed eastward.
Some 486,000 properties in Britain were left without power,UK Power Networks said, in one of the worst storms to hitEngland since the 1987 "Great Storm" which killed 18 people andfelled around 15 million trees. By mid-afternoon, 115,000properties were still without power.
The Association of British Insurers said it was too early togive figures on insured loss. A storm in Britain in 1987 stormcaused 2.2 billion pounds of damage in today's terms (1 billionin 1987 money). The last comparable storm to today's was in2002, a Met Office spokesman said.
"The issue for us will be flooding more than the wind and itwill become clearer this afternoon," Philip Moore, group financedirector at LV, which insures more than 500,000 homes inBritain, said. "So far it is not as bad as '87."
Northern Europe was preparing for the impact. In Denmark,several bridges were closed as the storm hit the west coast ofJutland and was expected to move towards the capital ofCopenhagen during the afternoon.
Sweden cancelled all passenger trains in the south of thecountry ahead of the storm's arrival.
Transport was hard hit in Britain. As the working weekbegan, London's commuter train service was shut while severalTube lines were suspended due trees toppling onto the tracks.The Severn motorway bridge linking England to South Wales wasalso closed.
London's Heathrow airport said 130 flights were cancelled,the majority between 0600 and 1100 GMT and told passengers tocheck with their airlines before travelling.
Passenger Nozipho Mtshede said she was going to miss herfather's funeral in Zimbabwe due to her flight being delayedeight hours: "I won't make it because they can't keep him soI'll have to miss his burial."
Volumes in the gilt market were around half normal levels astrading floors managed with a skeleton staff. "By 9 o'clock onlysix out of 25 of us were in," said Marc Ostwald, fixed incomestrategist at Monument Securities. "It's been a fantasticallyquiet day."
