Global General

Heavy snow brings travel chaos in Europe

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-01-10 16:39

Heavy snow brings travel chaos in Europe

A worker de-ices an aircraft at Frankfurt airport on January 9, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

At Frankfurt airport, around 200 of 1,250 scheduled flights had been cancelled by 1130 GMT, while more than 500 trucks were held up at the A5 autobahn's border crossing to France in the southwestern town of Neuenburg, authorities said.

Southern Germany suffered the worst of the snow and winds, where hundreds of road accidents injured a number of people and caused traffic jams on several main roads, police said.

Aside from a few isolated incidents in the southeast, rail travel in Europe's largest economy was not seriously affected, a spokesman for rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

Late on Friday, a plane departing the southern city of Nuremberg skidded from the runway and got stuck in the snow prior to take-off. No passengers were injured.

Authorities had issued warnings before low pressure front "Daisy" hit Germany this weekend, advising households to stock up on food and avoid unnecessary travel. Disruptions on Saturday were generally deemed to be less severe than expected.

The DWD meteorological service said the front would move north in the course of the day, and that winds of up to 100 kph (60 mph) were possible on Germany's Baltic coast.

French meteorological organisation Meteo France placed 29 of the country's departmental regions on a state of alert on Saturday because of heavy snow falls and icy roads.

Toulouse, Lourdes, Lyon, Brest and Lorient airports were closed and flights were delayed at Paris Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports, Aeroports de Paris said.

Civil aviation authorities had called for a quarter of flights to be cancelled at Charles de Gaulle.

Trains between Paris and cities such as Tours, Lyon and Marseille had to travel more slowly than normal, leading to delays to services, according to rail operator SNCF.