Deadly freeze, heavy snow keep slamming Europe

Deadly freeze, heavy snow keep slamming Europe

By Eric J. Lyman, Special for USA TODAY
Updated 2/7/2012 2:29 PM



ROME – The streets here were empty Monday as the city was crippled for the fourth straight day by a massive snowstorm that shut down streets, felled trees and paralyzed villages with the heaviest snowfall in decades. Even Rome's ancient Colosseum was closed.


By Amel Emric, AP
A woman walks through a snow-covered street in Sarajevo on Monday. Serbia and Bosnia closed schools.
"I have not seen anything like this in 50 or 60 years," said Adele Zanzero, an 87-year-old retired fruit vendor, who was born in Rome. "When I was a young girl, we had snowstorms, but the city moved slower then. Now it's a fast-paced modern place, and everything just stops with weather like this."

A mini ice-age has caused record-low temperatures in Eastern Europe and rare heavy snow across the continent. Reports from hospitals and emergency agencies put the death toll over the past several days at more than 300 as of Monday.

Finland's temperatures plummeted to 40 degrees below zero. The Netherlands saw its coldest weather in 15 years. Even Algeria in North Africa had snow and ice on the ground.

Eight inches of snow fell on Rome, the largest single snowfall here in 26 years. Snowdrifts reached 6 feet outside the city. Cars were abandoned on roads. The farm industry group Coldiretti said 2 million cows and pigs could die for lack of food and water.

Italian newspapers reported that the city has only three true snowplows, though tractors have been rigged to help clear streets.

The National Civil Protection Agency handed out 4,000 shovels to residents.

Snow is unusual in Rome, where most winters pass without a snowflake. Many neighborhood food stores in Rome remained open but lacked fresh milk, fruits and vegetables.

"A lot of the suppliers just haven't been able to get through to us," said Lorenzo Ciaffi, a food shop worker.

"It's not that cold for me. But the icy streets and the lack of public transport make it tough," said Jason Kreft, 36, a schoolteacher from Boston in Rome on vacation.

In Serbia, 70,000 people were cut off by the heavy snow. All schools were closed to save power and to keep children safe. Thrilled, hundreds of kids filled the parks in the capital, Belgrade, sledding and making snow angels.

In Bosnia, hundreds of villages were isolated by snowed-in roads and avalanches. Authorities said they have had no contact for 72 hours with about 120 people in the central village of Zijemlja, where people have no electricity or phone lines.

"There are several small hamlets with children and elderly people — and we are not able to help them," said Radovan Palavstra, mayor of East Mostar.

In Bulgaria, civil defense chief Nikolai Nikolov said an 8-foot flood hit 700 houses in the village of Bisser after a dam on the Ivanovo reservoir collapsed, drowning four people. Other dams were close to overflowing.

In London, heavy snowfall over the weekend canceled more than 1,000 flights at Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest hub. The snow had all but disappeared Monday, but the disruptions continued.

"Only about two hours after it had been snowing, buses had already been canceled and I was stuck with a friend with no way of getting home," said Alice Fauth, 32, from London.

In northern Germany, zoos struggled to keep their animals safe, bringing small animals such as meerkats (similar to prairie dogs) into warm enclosures. Even the penguins couldn't take the cold, said André Stadler, a curator at the Wuppertal Zoo in western Germany.

"They got stuck like popsicles," he said. "When they got out of their pool, the water wasn't drying fast enough on them so it was freezing on their heads and feet."

He said that they also had to bring the elephants inside to prevent their ears from getting too cold "or there's a danger they will freeze."

Contributing: Josie Le Blond in Berlin, Louise Osborne in London; the Associated Press