Europe counting cost of big freeze

EUROPE was yesterday battling to cope with the Arctic freeze amid warnings over the cost of the lengthy cold snap which has seen thousands of flights and train journeys cancelled and caused dozens of deaths.

Some villages in northeast Germany remained cut off as snowdrifts whipped up by gale force winds made roads and railways unpassable.

“We are slowly fighting our way through the masses of snow,” said a police spokesman in the northern German city of Luebeck.