Snowstorm strands thousands in Istanbul and Athens

An abandoned vehicle, is seen in an motorway way after a snowstorm, in Athens, on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022. Army and fire service teams were deployed late Monday to extract hundreds of motorists trapped for hours in snowed-in cars. A snowstorm of rare severity disrupted road and air traffic Monday in the Greek capital of Athens and neighboring Turkey’s largest city of Istanbul, while most of Greece, including — unusually — several Aegean islands, and much of Turkey were blanketed by snow. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

Rescue crews in Istanbul and Athens are scrambling to clear roads that came to a standstill after a massive cold front and snowstorms hit much of Turkey and Greece, leaving countless people and vehicles in both cities stranded overnight in freezing conditions.

Roads in and around Istanbul became clogged on Monday after the storm pounded the city of about 16 million people which straddles the European and Asian continents, with more than 80cm (31in) of snow in some areas.