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18th Feb 2022

More chaos as Storm Eunice rips open 02 Arena in London

Kieran Galpin

This comes after red weather warnings were issued by the Met Office in the UK.

As Storm Eunice rips through the UK and Ireland, leaving a trail of rubbish and chaos in her wake, footage has emerged showing London’s O2’s arena dome being ripped away by winds.

In a 45-second clip uploaded to Twitter by user @BJFHubbard, the roof of the O2 arena in London is visibly torn apart. The roof was constructed from Sheerfill Architectural Membrane in 2007, with the waterproof material made from fibreglass and polytetrafluoroethylene.

Unfortunately, it was no match for Eunice.

https://twitter.com/bjfhubbard/status/1494650273549201408?s=21

@BJFHubbard has continued to post updates throughout the day from the Intercontinental Hotel across the street. The dome is visibly shredded in six places in the most recent update, which has already been retweeted 680 times.

Hubbard told ITV News: “It started off as one small panel down in the corner and went right up to the centre.

“And now it is in the second, third and fourth panel and being completely shredded – I’m not sure there is anything that can be done. This is just serious damage.”

https://twitter.com/BJFHubbard/status/1494660067848773632

Another eyewitness Mala Sharma said that “more and more parts are getting ripped off.” She added that “it’s going to be a safety issue for people around.”

gA red weather warning was issued to much of the UK overnight, which seems prudent, given that record wins of 122mph have been recorded.

People have shared their storm experiences online, with comedian Matt Lucas tweeting: “Storm Eunice blew my gay away. I am cleansed.”

Comedian Alistair Barrie wrote: “I bet The Express thinks Storm Eunice is a Remainer plot. All those wind turbines they hate so much are going to rotate so fast Britain will actually take off and crash land back in mainland Europe.”