Travel chaos as Europe freezes

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The British capital, London, ground to a halt yesterday after the worst snowstorm in 18 years caused hundreds of flight cancellations and virtually shut down public transportation.

Flurries also brought chaos to parts of France and Spain, while three people died in Italy amid adverse weather conditions there. The snow showers reached as far south as Morocco.

"We're not in Russia here," Guy Pitt, a Transport for London spokesman, told the Associated Press. "We don't have an infrastructure built for constant snow."

Up to 20 centimeters (eight inches) also fell in parts of Switzerland overnight while part of the road around the San Bernardino tunnel was closed.

One to three centimeters (around an inch) of snow fell in Belgium, where around 400 kilometers of traffic jams accumulated during the morning peak hour. In Ireland, particularly in the east of the country, snow caused hazardous driving conditions there and flights between Ireland and Britain were disrupted. In Wales two climbers were killed on Mount Snowdon and hundreds of schools closed around the country.
The Met Office, UK's national weather service, issued a severe weather warning for London and the southeast of England, while train and London Underground services have also been badly hit. Shops, schools and courts shut down and long trails of commuters trudged through the streets, looking for scarce taxis or ways to work after more than 10 centimeters of snow fell overnight

Heathrow closed one of its two runways and reported more than 650 cancellations. Major delays and cancellations were also reported at London's other major airports at Gatwick, Luton and Stansted. London's City Airport was closed.

In France, flights were delayed by an average of an hour in Paris's Orly and Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airports. One of Orly's two runways was closed, and the other opened two hours late, according to Agence France-Presse.

The snow and icy conditions caused a dozen accidents in the Paris region without causing injuries, officials said. In Italy, three people died and 500 people had to be evacuated from their homes Sunday amid bad weather in parts of the country, while Milan woke yesterday to a dusting of snow.

Snowfalls snarled traffic in several parts of Spain including the Madrid area where sections of two highways were temporarily closed to vehicles, causing traffic jams, the National Travel Administration Department, or DGT reported.