It's Not Just In Belarus: Cyclone "Priska" Left Hundreds Of Thousands Of People Without Power

• 23.08.2026, 15:10

Severe weather raged in four countries at once.

Cyclone "Priska" hit Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland. At least two people were killed, two others were injured, and hundreds of thousands of residents in the region were left without power.

Local media are reporting on the aftermath of the storm.

In Lithuania’s Anykščiai District, a fallen tree killed a man, and a woman was injured. In Vilnius, the storm toppled at least 230 trees, and approximately 250,000 customers lost power due to damage to the power grid.

In Latvia, wind gusts exceeded 30 meters per second in some areas. Power was cut to approximately 235,000 households. One person died in Jelgava as a result of the collapse of building structures; another casualty was reported in the Aiviekste Parish, where a tree fell on a person. In Riga, train and public transportation services were temporarily restricted, and the capital’s airport warned passengers of possible delays and route changes for certain flights.

In Poland, approximately 241,500 customers were left without power, with the most severe situation occurring in the Białystok area. Due to the bad weather, a temporary ban on swimming was also imposed in certain areas along the Baltic coast.

The most widespread power supply problems were reported in Belarus. The storm damaged about 1,900 transformer substations, 179 10-kV power lines, 12 35-kV lines, and another seven 110-kV lines. Thirty-one farms and 16 boiler rooms were also left without power.

The most difficult situation was observed in the Minsk, Vitebsk, and Grodno regions. At the same time, the scale of the outages grew rapidly: while power outages were reported in 148 settlements around 3:00 p.m., four hours later that number had risen to 659.