Wintry weather continues to hold Europe in its grasp

Mon, 20 Dec 2010

Berlin - An ongoing pre-Christmas blast of winter weather continued to grind transportation to a halt across much of Europe Monday, with travelers stranded from London to Prague.

Airports - some of which have seen passengers camping out for several nights - saw some of the biggest disruptions.

A limited schedule of arrivals and departures resumed at London's Heathrow airport early Monday. Nonetheless, hundreds of passengers spent a second night stranded at Heathrow airport, the busiest in the world, which has been virtually shut to traffic since Saturday.

Heathrow is running a "limited schedule of arrivals and departures" from 0600 GMT, a spokeswoman said, adding that disruption was expected for days to come.

Singer Lily Allen was among those caught up in the delays at Heathrow, writing on Twitter: "Terminal 3 carnage. Apparently our flight is going today. Lots of tinfoil blankets all over the place. Departures is a ghost town."

Gatwick airport was open Monday with operations "returning to normal," a spokesman said. However, passengers were warned to contact their airline before traveling as delays and cancellations were set to continue.

Snow and ice also led to further cancellations at Germany's Frankfurt Airport, with 300 flights canceled Monday. A spokeswoman said the situation would not return to normal if it continued to snow throughout the day.

At Hamburg airport, in the north of the country, Lufthansa canceled all flights to Frankfurt. Some flights to London and Paris were also forced to cancel due to weather at those airports.

Paris' Orly airport was set to remain partially closed throughout the morning as it, too, was snowed under.

However, Brussels' Charleroi airport reported resumption of normal operations after being shut down on Sunday.

Eurostar, the railway link between London, Paris and Brussels, was also affected, with delays of up to 90 minutes in departures from London's St Pancras station, a spokesman said.

Eurostar said it would run an emergency timetable this week. A spokesman urged passengers not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary, with refunds or rescheduled tickets available to those who could postpone their journey.

Speed restrictions on Eurostar services are also adding up to two hours to journey times.

The weather also disrupted road and rail traffic across the continent. French lorries were banned from the roads, as were those in Belgium's south. Sweden and Finland reported difficult road conditions.

Train service was disrupted in southern Sweden, with 100 out of 350 scheduled commuter trains canceled to allow crews time to clear train switches.

Ten regional lines in the Czech Republic, mostly near mountain or border regions, were also closed, as were several roads.

And in Finland, Helsinki's snow cover reached a level of 67 centimeters, coming up on the 1915 record of 71 centimeters.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/358971,continues-hold-europe-grasp.html.