A MASSIVE clean up operation was under way today after gale force winds battered the country, killing seven people, including three children, and causing travel chaos.

Rail companies and other key services worked overnight to clear tracks and roads after winds of up to 100mph disrupted services.

Train travellers were told to expect some delays this morning as routes were returned to normal.

The Association of Train Operating Companies said its members expected to run normal or near-normal services on most routes from this morning, but warned that travellers should expect delays.

At Heathrow Airport a spokeswoman said there would be some flight cancellations today after around 60 were cancelled yesterday. The RAC said most roads had been cleared by this morning and problems with road travel should be minimal.

Forecaster Nikki Robertson at the PA WeatherCentre said calmer, drier weather was now expected. "We have got some cloud and rain moving in to Wales and the south west during the evening and it should spread eastwards."

The damage caused by the gales could cost up to £50 million to repair, the Association of British Insurers estimated.

Seven people, including three children, died yesterday as sustained wind speeds of between 40mph and 60mph, the equivalent of force eight and 10 on the Beaufort Scale, were recorded across many parts of the UK.

Two boys, one aged 12 and another aged about three, were struck on the head in separate incidents in Norfolk and Suffolk.

The elder boy died after a tree hit him in Costessey, on the outskirts of Norwich, as he walked in a wooded area.

The younger child is understood to have been with his mother and dog when he was struck as he sat in his pushchair in woods in Felixstowe. He died later at hospital.

Elsewhere in East Anglia, a middle-aged man from Whittington, near Downham Market, Norfolk, died after he was hit by a falling tree in his back garden.

In the West Midlands, a 14-year-old girl was killed and her mother and sister seriously injured when a large branch crushed their car on the A41, at Ternhill, near the family's home town in Market Drayton, Shropshire.