The powerful storm that hit Southern Finland over the weekend is one of the main talking points of Finnish newspapers this Monday. The tempest, dubbed Kiira by meteorologists, caused widespread damage throughout Finland Proper, Uusimaa and Kymenlaakso.
Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat looks at some individual misfortunes – from trees falling on washing lines to grocery products ruined by flooding – and features some brief updates and background on the storm.
Almost all households that lost power had their electricity restored by 10 pm on Sunday, power company Caruna says in IS. The last homes will come back online on Monday after faults in the low-voltage distribution network are fixed.
The official warning announcement came some 20 minutes after the storm hit, which is late in the game for the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Curt FMI reasons cited were "transmission-related procedures" such as routing the announcement through Emergency Services.
"There was definitely an unusually long delay," meteorologist Hannu Virta confirms in the paper.
Official warning or not, it is safe at least to say that music-lovers in Helsinki were not daunted by initial forecasts of rough weather, as the Flow Festival was sold out and saw attendance figures of 75,000 people. Thousands were caught off-guard by the deluge, and both entry into the Suvilahti area and some outdoor stage performances were interrupted by the elements.
Big enough storms in Finland are named by choosing the first unused (male or female) name in the University Almanac, which lists all of the country's name days.
Bus and taxi rush expected
The Finnish Locomotive Drivers' Union strike begins from 6.00 pm Monday, and when a couple hundred thousand people need to replace train services with some other form of transportation, that means buses and taxis will be in high demand.
Daily Helsingin Sanomat writes that Helsinki Region Transport is preparing for the strike rush by running additional bus services on Monday and Tuesday. Eleven extra buses will drive normal routes (611, 617 and 738X) between the centre of Helsinki and Tikkurila, the airport and Kerava. Finnair bus schedules are on the carrier's site, HS says.
Meanwhile Helsinki taxis will be operating at maximum capacity over the next day or two. The Lähitaksi company will bring out all 1,250 of its cabs, while Taksi Helsinki will trot out its fleet of 1,300 cars between 5:30 am and 8 pm on Tuesday.
Lähitaksi CEO Juha Pentikäinen says that work stoppages such as the one currently taking place affect taxi service capacity in varying ways.
"It doesn't always even register as a spike in our traffic," he says. "People get creative; they work from home, avoid moving around and use car pooling."
Tampere EU culture capital 2026?
Regional paper Aamulehti leads with a spot of art world news, as the city of Tampere is likely to apply to be named European Capital of Culture in 2026. The application period ends in three years' time in 2020.
Almost all city council members indicated they would back a culture capital bid for Tampere, when asked if the city should be in the running or if the culturally significant Mänttä-Vilppula should be supported for the nomination instead. The Mänttä Art Festival, organised since 1993, is an annual, multidisciplinary series of exhibitions and performances that gathers contemporary artists from across Finland and the world.
Cities vying for the cultural top spot must prepare a programme for the nomination year that includes a European perspective, encourages interaction and works in line with the city's own development strategies, AL writes.
The European Capitals of Culture for 2017 are Århus in Denmark and Pafos in Cyprus. In 2018 the cities of Valleta in Malta and Leeuwarden in the Netherlands will be up.