Girl (9) lucky to be alive after tree falls on her during Storm Deirdre

The nine-year-old girl was out cycling with her mother and brother when the incident happened near The Marina, Blackrock, Cork, on Saturday afternoon.

She was pinned to the ground by the tree but was freed thanks to two units of Cork Fire Brigade, assisted by paramedics.

They worked for 45 minutes using saws to free her.

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The girl suffered cuts, grazes and a suspected broken leg, but escaped life-threatening injuries. She is expected to make a full recovery.

One source said the girl avoided more serious injuries because of the way in which the limbs of the tree hit the ground.

It meant the full weight of the boughs did not fall on her and crush her.

Elsewhere, Storm Deirdre caused misery across Ireland, with torrential rainfall inflicting flood damage.

High winds left thousands of homes in several parts of the country without power as they brought down power lines.

Motorists and homeowners were yesterday warned to take precautions, with further heavy rainfall forecast for tonight and tomorrow, with the risk of yet more flooding.

A number of outdoor Christmas festivals closed early last weekend due to the weather conditions.

Met Eireann warned that rain will spread from Connacht this evening and will become heavy across most parts of Ireland, with the potential for localised spot flooding.

Heavy rain will continue into tomorrow with further surface flooding on many roads.

In Dublin, today is likely to start out dry but cloud is set to build up and scattered showers will soak the city and outside regions into the afternoon. It will be windy as the day goes on but temperatures will reach up to 13C.

There is also a risk of hail and thunder near coasts tomorrow and there will be strong-to-gale-force winds in the east in the morning.

Temperatures are expected to drop as low as 3C tomorrow night in the east, with a patchy frost possible.

The wet and windy weather is set to continue into the final weekend before Christmas.

Met Eireann has said there is little chance we will see a white Christmas, as it is just too mild.

"So far there's no indication in our chart of snow for Christmas," meteorologist Liz Gavin said.

"The temperature today will reach 9C to 13C and on Tuesday, it will be around 5C to 12C.

"We are hovering round those temperatures over the next week and we'd have to be looking at temperatures of around 3C to get snow, so we aren't anywhere near that."