(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-09 19:33

HEADLAND NEAR ROZENBURG, Netherlands - The Netherlands and Britain closed sea defense barriers, airlifted North Sea oil rig workers and evacuated thousands of people from homes as a storm sent a 3-metre tidal surge along their coasts.

Waves crash into the sea defences at Southwold in Suffolk, eastern England, during strong winds, high tides, and tidal surges, November 9, 2007. [Agencies]

British police told people to leave their homes as the east coast braced for severe flooding in the face of the surge coinciding in places with high tides.

In the early hours of Friday, the surge struck the southern coast of the Netherlands but did not breach the storm barrier near the port city of Rotterdam.

Late on Thursday spectators braved rain and wind to watch as the Maeslant barrier's two arc-shaped steel doors shut for the first time since its construction in the 1990s. The barrier closed the waterway that connects Rotterdam, Europe's biggest port, to the North Sea.

Rotterdam, a major transit point for oil, coal, grains and other commodities, was expected to stay shut to shipping for the rest of the day, affecting about 60 ships.

Britain's Met Office said north-westerly winds exceeding 50 mph were coinciding with low pressure and high tides to produce the exceptional conditions. The Thames Barrier which protects London from flooding was closed late on Thursday.

Weather experts had invoked images of the major floods of 1953 that killed more than 2,000 people in eastern England and the Netherlands, but a Dutch transport ministry spokesman said early on Friday the flood defenses seemed to have held.

Hundreds of oil and gas workers were airlifted from North Sea platforms, after forecasters predicted 20-metre (66 foot) waves and wind gusts of more than 100 km per hour (62 mph). On Friday production was starting up again.

The Dutch ministry spokesman said water levels had reached 3.16 meters above mean sea level in the southern Netherlands and subsided again but were now peaking in the north at 3.40 meters above sea level, with no flooding reported. Some southern barriers have already been opened.

The floods of 1953 saw Dutch waters rise to 3.85 meters (12 ft 7 inches) above sea level.

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