Europe shivers in winter storms

A bitterly cold winter storm gripped parts of Europe today, leaving at least three sailors dead after a ship sank and thousands of travellers stranded at airports, on snowy mountain roads and in remote villages.

In Western Europe, ice and snow disrupted traffic. The Mont-Blanc tunnel linking France and Italy was closed to trucks until Friday because sharp temperature differences between the two sides threatened to disrupt the tunnel’s ventilation.

A Boeing 737 from Marrakech, Morocco slid off an icy runway while landing in Deauville, northern France. The plane came to a halt in grass and the 169 passengers were evacuated unharmed.

Cold weather and heavy snow disrupted traffic in Sweden and caused half a dozen road accidents.

In southern Sweden, two passenger ferries travelling from Rostock in Germany to Trelleborg were kept waiting at sea for several hours after the bad weather made it impossible to dock.

In Bulgaria, authorities declared a state of emergency, with the army called in to help civil defence authorities clear roads and reach stranded motorists.

A cold spell also caused problems in neighbouring Romania, where Bucharest’s two main airports were closed. Parts of Turkey and Greece, as well as Western Europe, were also affected.

More than 300 Bulgarian villages were left without electricity and dozens were cut off without food supplies or fresh water, authorities said. The northern Danube municipality of Ruse declared a state of emergency after snow blocked many roads.

Temperatures fell to minus 15C, while snow drifts reached more than six feet in parts of the country. Hundreds of motorists were trapped on mountain roads.

At least three crewmen were killed when a Bulgarian ship carrying scrap metal sank during a storm on the Azov Sea between Ukraine and Russia.

The Vanessa was carrying a crew of 10 and a Ukrainian pilot who was guiding the ship as it approached the Kerch Strait, which connects the Azov Sea to the Black Sea.

In Romania, thousands of passengers were stranded after Bucharest’s two main airports were closed due to heavy snowfall. The snow also blocked many roads in the south of the country, forcing the closure of at least one border crossing with Bulgaria and prompting train delays.

In Turkey’s capital, Ankara, snow caused traffic jams and accidents, but no injuries were reported.

Temperatures in Greece fell to a low of minus 18C in the north of the country, where snow blanketed roads.