Weather Takes Further Toll on Europe

Wall Street Journal 23 Dec 09;

Snowstorms and freezing temperatures continued across Europe, disrupting Christmas-holiday travel for thousands of people and claiming at least 80 lives.

Eurostar trains resumed running on a reduced service between London and Poland, where 29 people have frozen to death since the start of the weekend, and Ukraine, with 27 fatalities, have fared worst. But the effects are being felt from Scandinavia to Italy. A homeless organization in France said 12 people have died in the severe cold this month.

Snowfall has wrought havoc on traffic in Milan, Italy's financial capital, and elsewhere in the north of the country. Authorities in Venice warned residents of the lagoon city that they expect rising winds from the south to cause an exceptionally high tide. The tide is forecast to reach almost a meter and a half, meaning large parts of the historic city could be flooded.

Continental Europe, starting to move thousands of passengers left stranded by weekend train breakdowns in the Channel Tunnel.

Eurostar Chief Executive Richard Brown said service wouldn't be back to normal until after Christmas. He said passengers with tickets for Wednesday and Thursday could come to stations, though there was no guarantee they would be able to board trains.

Budget airline Easyjet said it had chartered a larger plane to boost capacity on flights between the airport at Luton, north of London, and Paris.

However, severe weather caused chaos at airports across Europe, with flights delayed or canceled in Italy and Germany. Britain's airports were recovering from a backlog, but travelers were warned there could be cancellations. More than 200 flights were canceled at Frankfurt airport, and about 400 stranded passengers spent a night at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on improvised beds.

Forecasters predicted more snow and ice over the next day would affect road, rail and air travel.

Eurostar, its reputation tarnished by the chaos, said its trains suffered electrical failure caused by condensation when moving from cold air in northern France into the warmer tunnel. An independent review of the breakdown is scheduled to report by the end of next month, its British co-director said Tuesday. Christopher Garnett, who has served as chief executive of a British railway company and commercial director of Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel, will lead the review with Claude Gressier of France.

With temperatures dropping to minus 20 degrees centigrade, Polish police appealed for people to alert them if they see homeless or drunk people lying outdoors.

In Austria, authorities said two people froze to death as they tried to make their way home after evenings out. A homeless Polish man was found dead in the French Mediterranean port of Marseille. Four people died in road accidents as blizzards enveloped large areas of Finland, and in Germany a man froze to death next to railway tracks in Mannheim after a night of drinking.

Italy sent hundreds of soldiers into the streets of Milan to help ease traffic after heavy snowstorms and freezing temperatures forced airports to close and halted trains. The Defense Ministry said some 600 soldiers had begun to shovel snow and 200 more were being deployed.

Private forecaster WSI said most of Europe is likely to experience colder-than-normal temperatures over the next three months. Todd Crawford of WSI said a combination of El Niño, a cold north Pacific and cold midlatitude North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures pointed to a continuation of frigid weather.

"There may be a relaxation of the current cold pattern during January, followed by a return to more consistent colder weather in February and March," he said.