JOIN USAn overnight snowstorm in northwestern Europe forced the closure of Frankfurt Airport, caused record traffic jams in Belgium, and left British and French drivers sleeping in their cars.
Take-offs and landings at Europe’s third-busiest airport were halted on Tuesday noon for two hours to clear snow from the runways. Airlines, including Deutsche Lufthansa, cancelled about 700 flights of a daily total of 1,200 as the airport was only partially reopened in the afternoon.
Snow and ice led to several accidents about 50 km from Frankfurt on the A 45 motorway, including a pile-up involving as many as 100 cars and trucks. In France, a Tunisair plane slid off the runway on landing at Orly airport, forcing the closure of a runway, 140 passengers were evacuated.
In Belgium, the breakdown assistance association Touring said the total length of tailbacks on highways and major roads at their rush-hour peak hit 1,670 km as against the previous 1,285 km set on February 3 last year.
“There was too much snow at the wrong moment. If it snows a lot at night, the salt doesn’t work as there aren't enough cars to spread it around,” Touring spokesman Danny Smagghe said. On Tuesday, total morning rush-hour traffic jams average 250-270 km.
The high-speed Eurostar train service between London and French and Belgian capitals and the Thalys line linking Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Cologne in Germany were both suspended.