A bitter cold with snow storms hit Europe, killing at least 29 people in Poland alone during the night from Saturday to Sunday. Nordic Countries to Italy, the disturbances were the common lot of motorists and users of air transport and rail in the last weekend before Christmas.
In France, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has asked airlines to Roissy-Charles de Gaulle on Sunday to cancel 40% of their flights until 15h, then 20% until early evening and again 20 % Monday morning.
In Britain, flights resumed at Manchester Airport, the busiest in the UK outside the London area, following the snow the only track that had been closed on time for operations.
Belgium has also been affected by bad weather on the air front. In Brussels, the passengers waited for hours in hopes of changing flight reservations.
Delays and flight cancellations were reported at the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, while in western Germany, Düsseldorf airport was closed due to heavy snowfall, with flights canceled or diverted .
Users railways were not better off. Trains from Belgium to Italy were delayed because of frost and icy routes. As traffic Eurostar, he has been suspended after a series of breakdowns that have blocked several trains for hours in the Channel Tunnel and had to stay up that we "fully understands" the reasons, according to the director Executive Officer, Richard Brown, the target of much criticism. Because of these failures approximately 31,000 people were forced to cancel their trip Saturday and 26,000 others would be affected on Sunday, according to Eurostar.
So far, Poland is the country hardest hit on a human level by the fall of mercury: 29 people died of hypothermia in the country over the weekend while nighttime temperatures reached in some places -- 20 degrees Celsius. Police on Sunday called the Poles to alert services if they were to meet people drunk or homeless people exposed to cold, to try to reduce the number of people who die each winter from hypothermia.
In Austria, the authorities reported the deaths of three people died of cold, while trying to return home after spending the night outside. Two of them were discovered in the province of Styria méridioniale, where temperatures are below -20 degrees, and the third near Salzburg.
In France, a man was found dead Saturday in his caravan Biache-Saint-Vaast, near Arras. According to the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais, "we can not confirm that he died of cold. Other causes are likely occurred. Furthermore, the body of a homeless man was found Saturday night in downtown Marseille. According to the track favored by the investigators, the young Polish 28 years have succumbed to hypothermia.
In much of Germany, the thermometer has dipped under the -15/-20 degrees during the night. A homeless man in Mannheim is a priori frozen to death Saturday morning while he was sleeping near an unused railroad after drinking, police said.
Further north, at least four people died in Finland in traffic accidents after a storm marked by the fall of 20cm of snow on the pavement.
In Italy, where the winters are generally milder, significant snowfall and a mercury dropped below zero caused the mess. In Sicily, the Department of Defense has dispatched helicopters to ferry crews of Emergency Preparedness to the people who needed emergency medical care.
The Italian federation of agricultural entrepreneurs Coldiretti warned that the roads covered with ice and snow delayed the distribution of milk while the frigid temperatures could damage fruit trees, vineyards and olive groves.
Result of weathering, major football matches were canceled in Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Finally, many parts of Switzerland have had their Sunday night in December the coldest for many years. A new record for the current winter has been recorded in La Brevine, nicknamed the "Siberia of Switzerland (canton of Neuchâtel), where he was -34.2 degrees. Whichever is lowest for December since 2001, according MeteoSwiss