FOUR people have died and 600,000 homes were left without power after winds of almost 100mph battered southern Britain, causing severe disruption in Scotland for cross-border travellers.

Routes across England were closed yesterday because of collapsed trees and debris thrown on to rail tracks by the high winds which had a knock-on effect for main line services between Scotland and the south.

East Coast rail passengers between Scotland and King's Cross in London faced significant disruption, with trains cancelled and up to two hours added to journeys yesterday morning.

The operator of services between Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness, Glasgow and London, has been ordered to cut speeds from 125mph to 50mph south of Peterborough from 5am to 10am today.

About 48 of the operator's 155 daily trains will be cancelled.

There was also disruption on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Glasgow Central after an obstruction on the line at Watford.

Virgin Trains operated a reduced timetable for part of the day to all destinations. Travellers on both routes holding tickets will be able to use them today.

Network Rail said the damage to railway lines had been "worse than expected", with more than 100 trees on the lines.

Edinburgh Airport, Scotland's busiest, said last night that KLM had cancelled some flights to Amsterdam this morning and two British Airways flights to Heathrow last night were cancelled.

Glasgow airport cancelled three fights and the airline said that 21 short-haul flights between England and Scotland had been grounded.

A teenager in Kent who was sleeping in a building beside her family home and a man in Watford, who was in a car, were killed by falling trees during the early hours of yesterday.

A man and a woman were also killed in west London after a falling tree caused a suspected gas explosion and house collapse.

Winds of up to 100mph swept through the South West, South, South East, the Midlands and the East of England after first hitting land in the early hours.

The teenager who died, named as Bethany "Gia" Freeman, was crushed as the 30ft tree fell in Lydens Lane, Hever, near Edenbridge, Kent, at 7.18am.

Kent Police, Kent Fire and Rescue Service and South East Coast Ambulance Service were called to the scene, but she was pronounced dead. Authorities had earlier confirmed that a man in his 50s from Harrow, in north west London, died as he drove through Watford, in Hertfordshire, when his car was hit by a tree.

The body of another man, in his 40s, was found at around noon at an address in Bath Road, Hounslow, west London, after the building collapsed following a gas explosion caused by a falling tree. His next of kin have been informed.

A woman in the property was found dead an hour-and-a-half later and police were working to establish her identity. Three houses were damaged by the blast, thought to have been caused by a ruptured gas main.

Fire Service station manager Matt Burrows said there was "scene of utter devastation" at the site of the explosion.

He said: "Debris was scattered over an area of about 50 metres (160ft) and the roof of one of the houses was in a tree across the road," he said.

A double-decker bus "rolled over" in Suffolk, injuring the driver and several passengers. Witnesses told police the vehicle blew over at 8am in Hadleigh, coming to a stop in a field.

The Met Office lifted its amber warning in the afternoon as the heart of the storm blew away from Norfolk and over the North Sea. The strongest gusts, 99mph, were recorded at the Needles on the Isle of Wight early yesterday.