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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Freeze, snow kill at least 12 in northern Europe

A municipal worker clears snow in London’s Trafalgar Square Thursday.  (Associated Press)
Juergen Baetz Associated Press

BERLIN – Freezing temperatures and often blinding snowfall killed 12 more people and caused travel chaos across northern Europe on Thursday, while some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans.

Airports closed down or delayed flights across the continent, roads were coated in an impassible mix of ice and snow and even Europe’s vaulted high-speed trains struggled to cope.

Authorities declared a state of emergency in three Balkan countries on Thursday – Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro – and were evacuating hundreds of people after heavy rainfall caused severe flooding along the Drina River – the worst in 104 years, officials said.

Thousands of people and livestock were also evacuated from parts of northwestern Albania after severe floods. A state of emergency was declared in the city of Shkodra, which remains isolated from the rest of the country by days of heavy rain.

In Poland, the cold claimed 10 more lives, bringing the overall deaths there to 18, police spokesman Mariusz Sokolowski said, as police scoured the streets for homeless or drunk people in hopes of saving their lives.

Authorities in Berlin kept subway stations, soup kitchens and heated buses open all night to provide shelter for the city’s homeless, and thousands in Germany had to sleep overnight on trains – either stuck by the wild weather or due to a lack of hotel rooms.

Air travel was upended. Gatwick Airport, one of Britain’s busiest, was closed for a second straight day, canceling another 600 flights as conditions continued to deteriorate. Edinburgh Airport and London’s City Airport were also closed until at least late evening, according to Eurocontrol, the air traffic agency.

France’s main airports also suffered cancellations, with about 25 percent of all scheduled flights – a total of about 300 – out of Paris Charles de Gaulle scrapped.

Significant delays also hit airports at London Heathrow, Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Berlin’s Tegel and Duesseldorf. In Geneva, the airport reopened only after removing 2,000 tractor-trailers full of snow from the runways.