WARSAW: The last toll from a bitterly cold spell across Europe increased to at least 39, officials said on Friday, while some of the worst floods in a century devastated parts of the Balkans.In many parts of Europe, train services continued to see heavy disruptions due to icy tracks, but air traffic was reverting to rule in many places.The Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was again operating normally but many areas of France faced traffic problems due to the snow.
n Warsaw, police reported 12 deaths overnight, raising the last toll in Poland alone to 30 over the preceding three days.In the Czechoslovak Republic, the last toll rose to four after a man was found fixed in Prague.In Germany, three people have now been killed, while authorities in northern England said they had ground the bodies of two elderly residents of Cumbria this week who are believed to accept frozen to death.Many of those who died in Poland are drunks or homeless people and police canvassed the streets in the hopes of preventing more from freezing to death, repeating appeals to Poles to study any homeless people they come across.Temperatures across most of Poland were around -15C in the dark but rose several degrees during the day on Friday, warming from a lows that dipped -20C earlier in the week.It`s "an early start to the winter because we are even in the fall season," said Omar Baddour, a scientist with the World Meteorological Administration in Geneva."It`s not very, very unusual, but it is an extreme winter spell that is leaving to live a few days," he added.Authorities, meanwhile, declared a land of emergency in three Balkan countries - Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro - and evacuated hundreds of people after heavy rain caused severe flooding on the Drina River - the whip in 104 years.But floodwaters receded significantly overnight in Bosnia, leaving a train of mud and debris in many areas.Bosnian authorities used rafts to deliver people on Thursday from apartments in Foca, and on the former face of the river, hundreds of mass were evacuated in Serbia and Montenegro as the Drina flooded farms and roads.Schools were closed, many people had no electricity or heat, and water supplies were contaminated on the river in all three countries.In Montenegro, rivers have totally submerged entire villages.Interior Minister Ivan Brajovic described the floods as "unprecedented" while the "Pobjeda" daily compared the area to Bangladesh. Thousands of mass and stock were also evacuated from northwestern Albania after severe floods.A nation of emergency was stated in the metropolis of Shkodra, which remains apart from the rest of the area by years of dense rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment