Perilous
Times
Christmas eve chaos as snow strands Tens of thousands in
Europe
by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) Dec 24, 2010
Tens of Thousands of travellers were stranded at the main Paris
airport Friday after hundreds of Christmas flights were cancelled,
as freezing weather and widespread snowfalls caused travel chaos
across Europe.
About 400 flights in and out of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle were
scrapped, down from an earlier estimate of 670, with flights in
Belgium and Germany also affected and motorists staying off the
roads as western Europe battled the latest cold snap.
Around 2,000 people had to be evacuated from Charles de Gaulle's
Terminal 2E because of a build-up of snow on the roof, a section
of which already collapsed in May 2004 shortly after it opened,
killing four people.
"I'm so tired that I no longer have the strength to be angry,"
said Frenchwoman Zoe Stephanou, 45. "My flight to Milan has been
cancelled twice. The first when there was no snow."
The cold hit air, rail and road transport across a swathe of
Europe, with thousands of travellers forced to spend the night in
trains or barracks, on ferries or in airports as the snow piled
up.
Improving weather conditions in northern France in the early
evening allowed a greater number of flights to leave, and normal
service was due to resume on Christmas morning, the airport's
operator said.
"Unfortunately it seems likely that some people will spend their
night at Roissy", French junior transport minister Thierry Mariani
told AFP. "How many, I don't know... it's impossible to say."
He said airports were struggling to deal with the third bout of
ice this month, a problem compounded by workers at France's main
anti-freeze factory at Fos-sur-Mer being on strike.
However, conditions at the airport improved after a planeload of
glycol arrived from the United States and a truck transported
several tonnes of anti-freeze from Germany.
Pierre Graff, the head of the Aeroports de Paris Authority, said
the snow blitz was unprecedented.
"Ever since Roissy came into being, we have never seen anything
like this," he told the RTL network.
Around 40 passengers spent the night on a train stuck in the snow
in the northern Somme region, with the Red Cross bringing them
blankets and hot drinks.
Deep drifts blocked many minor roads in the north and east, and
snow also caused power cuts for around 10,000 French households,
national grid authority ERDF said.
Between 10 and 20 centimetres (four and eight inches) of snow fell
overnight in Belgium, sowing chaos on the roads, with many buses
and taxis in the capital Brussels unable to drive on snow-blocked
streets and flights delayed.
Belgian trains were hit with severe delays as many railway
employees were unable to make it to work, operator Infrabel said.
At Belgium's main airport in Brussels, only one runway was usable
and many flights were delayed, with the defence ministry supplying
camp beds for stranded passengers.
More snow was expected across Germany, after several trains ground
to a halt overnight as service was cut between Hanover and Berlin,
the national railway Deutsche Bahn said.
The country's third largest airport in Duesseldorf was shut down
early Friday, a spokeswoman for the flag carrier Lufthansa told
AFP, although it reopened in the afternoon.
Two municipal swimming pool roofs collapsed under the weight of
the snow, without causing any casualties, in the city of Aachen
near the Belgian and Dutch borders.
Hundreds of tourists on the Danish island of Bornholm were forced
to spend the night in an army barracks or on the ferry after heavy
snow overnight.
"Bornholm police ask people not to move around. Heading off on
foot outside built-up areas is deadly dangerous and we ask people
to stay at home," they said in a statement.
In Britain, where heavy snow last week caused widespread transport
chaos, meteorologists warned of further snow and widespread icy
roads in northeast England and eastern Scotland.
Train services were disrupted across large parts of the country,
hitting travellers heading home for Christmas, although Heathrow
airport was largely back to normal after the chaos of recent days.
In Ireland, Dublin airport reopened Friday after being closed for
much of Thursday, stranding about 40,000 passengers.
Snow and ice crews worked overnight to clear about 120,000 tonnes
of snow from the runway, a statement from the airport said.
The cold snap also hampered travel in the Netherlands, although
police there said snow had helped them follow and arrest burglars
as well as catch cannabis growers, identified thanks to attic
growing lights melting rooftop snow.