Heavy snows disrupt German road, rail, air operations

Dec 10, 2010, 7:59 GMT

Berlin - Heavy snowfalls in Germany, especially in the southern areas, caused disruptions early Friday in road, rail and air operations in various parts of the country, officials reported.

German weather service officials said that overnight Friday, more than half a metre of new snow had fallen on the southern state of Bavaria.

In northern Bavaria, a 17-year-old girl was killed when the car she was a passenger in collided with a lorry in the opposite lane. The 21-year-old driver had lost control of the car on the icy surface.

Police reported that otherwise most of the some 150 accidents registered in the region were not serious.

But long back-ups were reported on Bavaria's roads, while local commuter rail traffic was disrupted in the cities of Nuremberg and Munich, officials reported.

Meanwhile air traffic saw further disruptions, some caused by the heavy snow and some by the problem of a shortage of de-icing fluid.

At the biggest airport in Frankfurt, officials there reported 37 flights cancelled Friday morning, following on the 480 cancellations the day before.

'There could be further cancellations on Friday,' Frankfurt airport spokesman Gunnar Scheunemann told the German Press Agency dpa.

At Berlin's Schoenefeld airport, the British discount flyer Easyjet and the German carrier Germanwings cancelled all their flights for Friday, citing the shortage of de-icing fluids.

Easyjet said the shortage had prevented nine planes from taking off on Friday, and 11 others from even landing at the airport.

At the same time, Schoenefeld airport officials reported that a new supply of de-icing fluid had arrived via lorry. The lorry failed to show up on Thursday because it was stuck in the winter traffic in the eastern state of Thueringia.

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