Europe battles on through early winter onslaught

Dec 3, 2010, 16:32 GMT

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Berlin (dpa) - European countries battled further Friday against this winter's first major onslaught, with ice and snow disrupting road, rail and air traffic in many places in the north of the continent and severe floods reported in southern regions.

Poland continued to be the worst-hit country, with authorities Friday reporting 12 more people frozen to death, bringing the total to 38 since the cold snap began in late November.

Most of the victims were homeless, or people under the influence of alcohol, authorities reported.

In the southern city of Czestochowa, some 150,000 people - about two-thirds of the city's population - were left without heat in their homes.

Meanwhile German weather service (DWD) officials were saying that the worst was over for the moment, after an arctic front had swept over the country the previous two days, bringing heavy snowfall, deep-freeze temperatures and icy winds.

The cold killed a 62-year-old man, who was found frozen to death in the snow in the eastern town of Querfurt, the second German to die as a result of the cold so far.

The German railway Deutsche Bahn reported ongoing cancellations and delays, stranding hundreds of passengers who had to spend the night at railway stations.

Highway traffic began to return to normal however.

Meanwhile the major airports of Frankfurt and Munich reported that operations had largely returned to normal after two days of flight chaos.

In Britain, London's Gatwick airport had reopened after being closed for two days.

On the Iberian peninsula, heavy snowfall severed traffic links in Portugal, where police reported 41 roads were blocked. Many schools remained closed. The region worst-hit was Guarda in north- western Portugal.

In neighbouring Spain, fog caused flights to be cancelled or diverted at some airports, while snowfall hampered school transport, with some 12,000 pupils prevented from attending classes in the north-western Galicia region.

While northern Europe battled ice and snow, the Balkans region was plagued by severe flooding, with thousands of people being evacuated Friday in Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania after several rivers burst their banks.

In Serbia, a state of emergency was declared in the towns of Ljubovija, Prijepolje and Loznica, while in Bosnia the army was deployed to Novo Gorazde, Bijeljina and Capljina in the east to assist in flood relief operations.

To the south of that area, between Serbia and Montenegro, the river Lim also burst its banks and swept away a bridge on the main road at Brodarevo, 200 kilometres south-west of Belgrade.

The Drina river, which forms the border between Serbia and Bosnia, swelled after heavy rainfall, putting towns in both countries at risk.

In Montenegro, Interior Minister Ivan Brajovic warned of a 'grave danger' posed by rising waters in rivers and Lake Skadar, in the south-west of the country.

More than 1,300 people had to leave their homes in 11 of the 21 Montenegrin municipalities, with villages around Podgorica, Berane, Kolasin and around Lake Skadar being hit the hardest.

In northwestern Albania some 7,000 people were evacuated from their homes as the waters of Lake Skadar rose and flooded thousands of hectares of land and some 1,000 houses.

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha visited the lake Friday and said the situation was under control.

In Venice, high tides early Friday reached 1.36 metres above sea level, flooding more than half of the lagoon city including the central St Mark's Square, officials said.

The water level marks a record high for Venice in 2010, according to the local tide-monitoring body, Istituzione Centro Previsioni e Segnalazioni Maree.

The tide is being pushed up by a combination of heavy rains and strong winds that have hit large parts of northern Italy.