Sudden snowstorm sweep northwestern Europe
Wild winter snowstorm battered northwestern Europe on Tuesday,
causing widespread travel chaos with the cancellation of hundreds of
flights at main airports and the suspension of train services including
Eurostar.
Sudden untimely snowfall coming only eight days at nick of start of spring has knocked out thousands of people in France and left hundreds of motorists stranded in their cars.
France the worst affected,in line follow Germany, Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands too reports major disruptions.Frankfurt Airport, Europe’s third-busiest hub, had reopened two runways by late Tuesday after being briefly forced to completely close due to the heavy snow.An airport spokesman said 700 flights had been canceled out of a scheduled daily total of 1,250 and warned of more cancellations and delays on Wednesday.Paris’s two main airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, said they had canceled up to a quarter of flights and the nearby Beauvais airport, serving mainly low-cost airlines, canceled all flights.
Affecting train mobility, Eurostar train between London and Paris, Thalys line between Paris and Brussels and all other high-speed train lines in northern France were suspended Tuesday. Eurostar said it would “operate an amended timetable” on Wednesday, while Thalys said travelers should expect “disturbances.”
Two northern French regions, Calvados and Manche, were under a “red alert” urging residents to stay indoors—the first time such an alert was activated because of snow. Weather service Meteo France described the snowfall as “remarkable for the season” and warned that alerts would probably remain in place until at least Wednesday. Nearly 2,000 people were stranded in their cars overnight as heavy snow paralyzed roads in Normandy and Brittany, with many spending the night in emergency shelters.
More than 80,000 homes in the north and northwest of France were without power, following snowfalls of up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) and winds creating metre-high snowdrifts. Schools in some northern regions were closed.
A traffic accident near Lille injured 14 people and a 58-year-old homeless man was found dead, presumably from the cold, outside a building in the town of Saint-Brieuc in Brittany.
‘Not a bad place to be stuck’At London’s St. Pancras International train station, hundreds of passengers queued in weary resignation to change their tickets after seeing the day’s trains canceled, hopeful but far from guaranteed of a seat on a Wednesday service.
EU headquarters in Brussels, meetings have been postponed, affecting EU operations.
Flights have also been cancelled or delayed at the Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.
A sudden, unseasonably cold weather is expected to continue until the weekend and alerts have been made for even heavier snow in some areas.
Britain were also stuck in their cars overnight, some for more than 10 hours as ice, snow and freezing winds descended on southeastern England.Police, rescue services, snow ploughs and gritting lorries battled to help the motorists in temperatures as low as minus 3 degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit), with some areas under 10 centimeters (four inches) of snow.Singer Cheryl Baker, formerly of the band Bucks Fizz which won the 1981 Eurovision with the song “Making Your Mind Up,” was among those caught up in the chaos as she tried to reach Brighton to pick up her children.“We (took) 10 hours to do a one-hour journey,” she told ITV. “The traffic and the weather have just been atrocious and none of the roads had been gritted.”
Public transport in Berlin was affected with several regional trains canceled or severely delayed. There were also a spate of crashes on icy German roads with several people seriously hurt and one death, according to police.
A mass pile-up in the western German state of Hesse involving at least 100 vehicles injured several dozen. The crash was apparently caused by heavy snowfall and icy roads.In Belgium, the snowstorms caused massive traffic disruptions, with vehicles backed up on 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of freeways Tuesday morning due to snowdrifts and ice.Media agencies
Sudden untimely snowfall coming only eight days at nick of start of spring has knocked out thousands of people in France and left hundreds of motorists stranded in their cars.
France the worst affected,in line follow Germany, Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands too reports major disruptions.Frankfurt Airport, Europe’s third-busiest hub, had reopened two runways by late Tuesday after being briefly forced to completely close due to the heavy snow.An airport spokesman said 700 flights had been canceled out of a scheduled daily total of 1,250 and warned of more cancellations and delays on Wednesday.Paris’s two main airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, said they had canceled up to a quarter of flights and the nearby Beauvais airport, serving mainly low-cost airlines, canceled all flights.
Affecting train mobility, Eurostar train between London and Paris, Thalys line between Paris and Brussels and all other high-speed train lines in northern France were suspended Tuesday. Eurostar said it would “operate an amended timetable” on Wednesday, while Thalys said travelers should expect “disturbances.”
Two northern French regions, Calvados and Manche, were under a “red alert” urging residents to stay indoors—the first time such an alert was activated because of snow. Weather service Meteo France described the snowfall as “remarkable for the season” and warned that alerts would probably remain in place until at least Wednesday. Nearly 2,000 people were stranded in their cars overnight as heavy snow paralyzed roads in Normandy and Brittany, with many spending the night in emergency shelters.
More than 80,000 homes in the north and northwest of France were without power, following snowfalls of up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) and winds creating metre-high snowdrifts. Schools in some northern regions were closed.
A traffic accident near Lille injured 14 people and a 58-year-old homeless man was found dead, presumably from the cold, outside a building in the town of Saint-Brieuc in Brittany.
‘Not a bad place to be stuck’At London’s St. Pancras International train station, hundreds of passengers queued in weary resignation to change their tickets after seeing the day’s trains canceled, hopeful but far from guaranteed of a seat on a Wednesday service.
EU headquarters in Brussels, meetings have been postponed, affecting EU operations.
Flights have also been cancelled or delayed at the Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris.
A sudden, unseasonably cold weather is expected to continue until the weekend and alerts have been made for even heavier snow in some areas.
Britain were also stuck in their cars overnight, some for more than 10 hours as ice, snow and freezing winds descended on southeastern England.Police, rescue services, snow ploughs and gritting lorries battled to help the motorists in temperatures as low as minus 3 degrees Celsius (26 degrees Fahrenheit), with some areas under 10 centimeters (four inches) of snow.Singer Cheryl Baker, formerly of the band Bucks Fizz which won the 1981 Eurovision with the song “Making Your Mind Up,” was among those caught up in the chaos as she tried to reach Brighton to pick up her children.“We (took) 10 hours to do a one-hour journey,” she told ITV. “The traffic and the weather have just been atrocious and none of the roads had been gritted.”
Public transport in Berlin was affected with several regional trains canceled or severely delayed. There were also a spate of crashes on icy German roads with several people seriously hurt and one death, according to police.
A mass pile-up in the western German state of Hesse involving at least 100 vehicles injured several dozen. The crash was apparently caused by heavy snowfall and icy roads.In Belgium, the snowstorms caused massive traffic disruptions, with vehicles backed up on 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) of freeways Tuesday morning due to snowdrifts and ice.Media agencies
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