Snow, Ice Disrupt Travel In UK, France, Netherlands

Some of the winter’s coldest weather so far hit travel in Britain, France, and the Netherlands on Monday, closing roads, grounding flights, and forcing train cancellations, including on Eurostar, just days after a power outage caused major disruption.

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Eurostar, which links the UK to the European mainland, told passengers travelling between London and the Netherlands to postpone their journeys, as services could not operate beyond Brussels due to the Dutch weather.

Rail traffic through the Channel Tunnel had only resumed on New Year’s Eve, after an electricity failure stranded thousands of passengers and even trapped some for a night on a powerless train.

“Due to expected adverse weather conditions, the traffic is suspended in the Netherlands today,” Eurostar said in a live service update, urging travellers affected not to turn up to the station.

Six trains between London St Pancras International and Paris Gare du Nord were cancelled, with most others delayed, according to the timetable.

British railway authorities, meanwhile, deployed snowploughs in Scotland to try to clear tracks hit by heavy snow, which reached up to 52 centimetres (20 inches) on Monday morning in Tomintoul, near Inverness in northeast Scotland.

NS Dutch railways said services were severely disrupted on Monday, especially in the Amsterdam region, and fewer trains would run in some parts of the country on Tuesday.

The UK’s Met Office issued fresh weather warnings for Monday and Tuesday for snow and ice for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and parts of northern England and said cold weather health alerts for all English regions would remain in place until Friday.

The disruption follows a cold snap in recent days in the UK.

Temperatures dropped to a low of -10.9 °C in the high hills of Shap in Cumbria, northwest England, on Sunday night.

“Overnight into Tuesday temperatures will once again fall below freezing for much of the country, with the lowest temperatures overlying snow possibly dipping to -12C,” the Met Office said.

A total of 212 schools were closed in Northern Ireland on Monday, the authorities said, with dozens of schools also shut in Scotland, Wales, and northern England.

Flights were cancelled at airports including Liverpool in northwest England, Aberdeen and Inverness in northeast Scotland, and Belfast in Northern Ireland.

At France’s major Paris airports of Charles de Gaulle and Orly, heavy snowfall forced airlines to reduce their flights by 15 percent.

Some 250 snowploughs were on standby at the two airports, French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot told a press conference, adding there would likely be “cancellations and some delays”.

At Schiphol, the main international airport of the Netherlands, some 700 flights were cancelled — more than half of those scheduled to take off or land on Monday.

Reduced traffic was expected for the rest of the day, the airport authorities said, with wintry weather forcing further cancellations in the coming days.

In Paris, snow and ice disrupted the bus network on Monday afternoon, and roads, particularly in the northwest Normandy region as well as in the French capital, were badly affected with long rush-hour tailbacks.

Weather service Meteo France issued an orange alert for snow and ice for much of northwest France, including Paris, on Monday evening — the second-highest warning.

It forecast sub-zero temperatures into the evening and overnight, with the mercury barely above freezing into Tuesday.

In Scotland, the police cautioned road users not to try to drive through closed roads because of the treacherous conditions.

The UK’s roadside assistance provider, the AA, said there had been a 40 percent spike in callouts compared to a typical Monday.

Belfast Zoo remained closed due to the weather conditions on Monday, while snow, ice or low temperature warnings were in place across neighbouring Ireland.

AFP