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  • 60 dead in Europe as snow, floods cause havoc

    Published on December 4, 2010

    At least 60 people have died across Europe during the current cold snap, as snow plagued transport in Britain and serious flooding prompted mass evacuations in the Balkans Friday.

    Seventeen people died in Central Europe in the last 24 hours from the cold, bringing the total this week to 45.

    A further 11 died in Russia, plus three in France and one in Germany, according to local authorities.

    At least 30 people, mainly homeless men, have died in Poland in the past week, and temperatures dropped to minus 15 degrees Celsius (five degrees Fahrenheit) overnight.

    Temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit) in Braemar, Scotland, while Britain struggled to get back to its feet after days of transport chaos.

    London’s Gatwick airport reopened Friday after a two-day shutdown due to snow, but others, including London Heathrow and Glasgow, warned of more cancellations and delays.

    Many trains were cancelled due to snow and travel by road was slow going, and around 2,000 schools remained closed. Despite Gatwick finally clearing the runways, freezing fog meant flights would be limited and “delays and cancellations inevitable”, Europe’s eighth-busiest passenger airport said.

    “It is likely to take a few days before flight schedules return to normal.” Eurostar, which operates high-speed passenger trains linking London with Paris and Brussels, said it was running a revised timetable, with 17 services cancelled.

    It warned of delays through the weekend. Britain’s Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has ordered a review of how transport operators have coped with the cold snap.

    A Downing Street spokeswoman said there were “no major concerns” over supplies of food, petrol, diesel or gas despite the continued freezing conditions, despite warnings of shortages in some newspapers.

    In Germany, a man in his sixties was found dead in the snow outside a savings bank in Leipzig.

    Temperatures in Moscow hit a low of minus 24 degrees Celsius, the lowest for the season in decades, weather authorities said.

    In the remote Evenk region in Siberia, temperatures hit a crisp minus 51 degrees Celsius.

    Meanwhile, in the Western Balkans, flooding caused by rivers swollen through heavy rainfall forced thousands of people from their homes in Albania, Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro Friday.

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