A woman was killed and two people were injured when a large Christmas tree fell in the Belgian town of Oudenaarde on Thursday night, the country’s authorities said.
Security camera footage from Belgian media showed a brightly lit 20-metre-high Christmas tree slowly leaning and then collapsing next to a Christmas market as a merry-go-round spun in the historic town square.
A spokesman for the Oost-Vlaanderen provincial prosecutor explained that the victim was a 63-year-old woman who lived in the city. Additionally, two women from the same town were slightly injured in the incident.
“The investigation will focus on whether the tree was properly secured and also on the weather conditions,” the same source said. It so happens that on that same day Storm Pia, which disrupted traffic in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands on Thursday, hit western Belgium and the weather service had issued a code yellow warning for coastal areas. However, the town where the tragic event occurred, Oudenaarde, is located more than 60 kilometers from the coast.
