2010 in Europe

Events

January

• January 1: Spain assumed the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Sweden.
• January 3: Two passenger trains collided in Bilecik, Turkey. One train driver was killed and seven passengers were injured.
• January 7: 22 people had died in the UK due to a cold snap.
• January 10: The opposition Social Democrat, Ivo Josipović, won 60.3% of the vote in the second round run-off, beating the mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić.
• January 11: More than 5,300 residents in the regions of Shkodër and Lezhë were evacuated due to severe flooding in northern Albania.
• January 25: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport, killing all 90 people on board.

  February

• February 3: The sculpture L'Homme qui marche I by Alberto Giacometti sells in London for £65 million, setting a new world record for a work of art sold at auction.
• February 16: A bus carrying French children on a school trip has overturned in Italy, killing at least three people on board and injuring another 20.
• February 18: A scattered exchange of gunfire on the line of contact dividing Azerbaijani and the Karabakh Armenian military forces left six people dead and one wounded.
• February 25: A collision between two trains in Buizingen, Belgium, left 18 people dead and 162 injured.
• February 26: At least 63 people were killed and one million homes were left without power in western France after cyclone Xynthia crossed Western Europe.

  March

• March 20: 67 people were arrested and several people were injured in Bolton town centre during a clash between members of the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism.
• March 24: A set of 16 goods wagons runaway for 8 km from a freight station at Alnabru in Oslo to hit and destroy a quayside warehouse. Three people died, and four were seriously injured.
• March 29: At least 40 people died after two female suicide bombers struck the Moscow Metro.
• March 31: A coach crashed into a river after falling from a bridge in a snowstorm in Lanark, Scotland, killing a 17-year-old girl and injuring 44 passengers.

  April

• April 1: A locomotive ran into a stationary passengers tram after its brakes failed during a test ride in Spišská Nová Ves, Slovakia, killing three people and injuring seriously eight others.
• April 10: The President of Poland, Lech Kaczyński, was among 96 killed when their airplane crashed in western Russia.
• April 12: A passenger train was hit by a landslide and partially derailed near Merano, Italy, killing 9 and injuring 28.
• April 14: Over 95,000 flights had been cancelled all across Europe because violent eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull.
• April 25: Austrian candidate for chairmanship, Heinz Fischer, won the presidential election with 79.3% of the valid votes.

  May

• May 5: Up to 500,000 people protested in front of the Greek Parliament amid plans to cut public spending and raise taxes as austerity measures in exchange for a €110 billion bail-out. The protest degenerated in violences between protesters and riot police, resulting in three deaths and dozens of injuries.
• May 14: Throughout Eastern Europe, 21 people were killed in floods triggered by the Windstorm Yolanda.
• May 24: Three people were killed and 35 injured when a Honda Civic car collided with a school bus near Keswick, Cumbria.

  June

• June 2: 13 people were killed and 25 injured in a shooting spree in Cumbria, England.
• June 6: A passenger train collided with boulders that had fallen on the line near Falls of Cruachan, Scotland, derailed and caught fire. Several people were hospitalised and the line was blocked for a week.
• June 15: Heavy rainfall in southern France caused severe floods in the department of Var, resulting in at least 25 deaths.
• June 23: A passenger train struck a group of people who were crossing the railway on the level at Platja de Castelldefels station near Barcelona. Twelve people were killed, and fourteen injured.

  July

• July 1: Belgium assumed the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from Spain.
• July 11: A traffic accident, near Inishowen, in Ireland, killed eight people.
• July 13: Two trains collided at Korzybie, in north Poland, injuring 36 people.
• July 18: Fourteen people were killed and twelve injured after a bus fell off a cliff in northern Albania, near the city of Durrës.
• July 23: One person was killed and 42 were injured when an eastbound Glacier Express derailed near Fiesch on the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn.
• July 24: At least 21 people have been killed and 510 more injured in a stampede at the Love Parade dance music festival in the German city of Duisburg.

  August

• August 6: One person died and about 40 were injured in a train derailment in Naples, Italy, on the Circumvesuviana railway.
• August 17
• *A sewage tanker lorry struck and derailed a passenger train on a level crossing at Little Cornard, England. 21 people were injured.
• *The Intercity-Express from Frankfurt to Paris hit a truck that had slid onto the rail near Lambrecht. The first two carriages derailed and ten people were injured.

  September

• September 19: A woman armed with an automatic weapon has shot dead three people and injured 18 others at a hospital in Germany before being killed by police.
• September 26: A Polish tourist bus returning from Spain careered into a bridge on a rain-soaked German motorway, killing 13 people.

  October

• October 1: 40 people were injured when a train derailed at Skotterud, Norway.
• October 4: Nine people died and 122 were injured in flooding from a ruptured red sludge reservoir at the Ajkai Timföldgyár alumina plant, Hungary.
• October 12
• *A bus packed with rush-hour commuters crashed into a train at a level crossing in Ukraine after jumping a red traffic light, killing 45 people and leaving another 9 wounded.
• *At most 3.5 million people attended a series of demonstrations organised by the French Union leaders throughout France.

  November

• November 11: More than 25,000 students protested in Dublin against increased student fees.

  December

• December 10: Former Prime Minister of Croatia, Ivo Sanader, was arrested in Austria over charges of corruption.

  Deaths

• January 11
• * Miep Gies, 100, Dutch humanitarian
• * Eric Rohmer, 89, French film director
• January 19 - Panajot Pano, 70, Albanian footballer
• January 22 - Jean Simmons, 80, British actress

• February 1 - Steingrimur Hermannsson, 81, 19th Prime Minister of Iceland
• February 6 - John Dankworth, 82, British jazz musician and composer
• February 11 - Alexander McQueen, 40, British fashion designer
• February 14 - Dick Francis, 89, British author and jockey

• March 3 - Michael Foot, 96, British politician
• March 12 - Miguel Delibes, 89, Spanish author and journalist
• March 21 - Wolfgang Wagner, 90, German festival director
• March 22
• * James Black, 85, British pharmacologist and Nobel Prize laureate
• * Valentina Tolkunova, 63, Soviet and Russian singer
• March 27 - Vasily Smyslov, 89, Soviet-Russian chess grandmaster
• March 30 - Martin Sandberger, 98, German army officer

• April 6 - Corin Redgrave, 70, British actor and political activist
• April 8 - Malcolm McLaren, 64, British musician and manager
• April 10
• * Ryszard Kaczorowski, 90, Polish statesman
• * Lech Kaczynski, 60, President of Poland
• April 16 - Tomas Spidlik, 90, Czech cardinal
• April 21 - Juan Antonio Samaranch, 89, Spanish sports official
• April 25 - Alan Sillitoe, 82, British writer
• April 30 - Paul Mayer, 98, German cardinal

• May 2 - Lynn Redgrave, 67, British actress
• May 4 - Luigi Poggi, 92, Italian cardinal
• May 5 - Giulietta Simionato, 99, Italian opera singer
• May 8 - Andor Lilienthal, 99, Hungarian chess grandmaster
• May 15 - Besian Idrizaj, 22, Austrian footballer
• May 17
• * Bobbejaan Schoepen, 85, Belgian singer
• * Yvonne Loriod, 86, French pianist
• May 18 - Edoardo Sanguineti, 79, Italian writer
• May 31 - Louise Bourgeois, 98, French-born American sculptor

• June 1 - Andrei Voznesensky, 77, Soviet-Russian poet
• June 2 - Giuseppe Taddei, 93, Italian baritone
• June 3 - Vladimir Arnold, 72, Soviet-Russian mathematician
• June 9 - Marina Semyonova, 101, Russian ballerina
• June 10 - Sigmar Polke, 69, German painter and photographer
• June 14 - Leonid Kizim, 68, Soviet-Ukrainian cosmonaut
• June 16 - Ronald Neame, 99, British cinematographer, producer and director
• June 18
• * Marcel Bigeard, 94, French military officer
• * Jose Saramago, 87, Portuguese writer and Nobel Prize laureate
• June 26 - Algirdas Brazauskas, 77, 9th President of Lithuania

• July 2 - Beryl Bainbridge, 76, British novelist
• July 5 - Cesare Siepi, 87, Italian opera singer
• July 17 - Bernard Giraudeau, 63, French actor and film director
• July 24 - Alex Higgins, 61, Northern Irish snooker player

• August 6 - Tony Judt, 62, British historian
• August 7 - Bruno Cremer, 80, French actor
• August 12 - Guido de Marco, 79, 6th President of Malta
• August 16 - Nicola Cabibbo, 75, Italian physicist
• August 17 - Francesco Cossiga, 82, 63rd Prime Minister and 8th President of Italy
• August 18 - Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, 80, Spanish aristocrat
• August 26 - Raimon Panikkar, 91, Spanish theologian
• August 27 - Anton Geesink, 76, Dutch judoka
• August 30 - Alain Corneau, 67, French filmmaker
• August 31 - Laurent Fignon, 50, French road bicycle racer

• September 9 - Bent Larsen, 75, Danish chess grandmaster
• September 12 - Claude Chabrol, 80, French film director
• September 29 - Georges Charpak, 86, French Nobel physicist

• October 4 - Norman Wisdom, 95, British actor and comedian
• October 9 - Maurice Allais, 99, French Nobel economist
• October 14 - Benoit Mandelbrot, 85, French-American mathematician
• October 30 - Harry Mulisch, 83, Dutch writer

• November 2 - Rudolf Barshai, 86, Soviet-Russian conductor and violist
• November 3 - Viktor Chernomyrdin, 72, 31st Prime Minister of Russia
• November 5 - Hajo Herrmann, 97, German fighter pilot and lawyer
• November 10 - Dino De Laurentiis, 91, Italian film producer
• November 12 - Henryk Gorecki, 76, Polish composer
• November 13 - Luis Garcia Berlanga, 89, Spanish film director
• November 17 - Isabelle Caro, 30, French model and actress
• November 29
• * Bella Akhmadulina, 73, Soviet-Russian poet
• * Mario Monicelli, 95, Italian actor, screenwriter and director

• December 12 - Tom Walkinshaw, 64, British racing car driver and team owner
• December 21 - Enzo Bearzot, 83, Italian footballer and coach