Climber’s mates die near safety

Press, 24 January 1984, Page 10

Climber’s mates die near safety

NZPA-AP Edinburgh Heavy snow and galeforce winds swept northern Britain at the week-end, killing five people, stranding thousands of travellers, and rocking ships at sea with 10-metre waves.

In the Scottish Highlands, even snow-ploughs got stuck and rescuers struggled to reach cars stalled on highways. Up to 48cm of snow fell and drifts were up to 1.5 metres deep.

Three student climbers died of exposure in the Cairngorm Mountains in central Scotland within a kilometre or so of safety. A fourth was found exhausted and barely coherent, crawling along the road. On the way, the students

had become progressively more exhausted, collapsed and died, one rescue worker said. The fourth member of the party had seen his companions die one-by-one. A policeman was killed in Northern Ireland when his car skidded on ice and crashed into a telephone pole. In Tyndrum, north of Glasgow, a w’bman, aged 50, died, apparently from a heart attack, as she and 39 other passengers and crew were taken from a snowbound train. In Iceland all domestic and international flights were stopped as the storm swept across the island with 160 km/h winds. Buses were halted in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital,

and many motorists had to leave their stranded cars as snow-drifts blocked main roads. No deaths were reported. In Peterhead Bay, north of Aberdeen, on Scotland’s east coast, two helicopters rescued 29 men from an oil rig that had parted with its moorings and went aground.

At least four trains were trapped by snow-drifts in the Highlands, where the police said that about 500 people had had to be rescued. Thousands of homes were left without electricity as blizzards downed power lines and prevented engineers from repairing them.

In the United States temperatures slid to as low as —4O deg. in the north-east

as a bubble of Arctic air that has frozen the nation since the middle of last week moved slowly out to sea.

“It’s the coldest it’s ever been in this century” in Massachusetts, said David Parrett, a National Weather Service observer in the western Massachusetts town of Chester, which hit —4O deg., along with Guilford, Maine.

Along the central east coast, Dulles international airport outside Washington dropped to a record —27 deg.

“We had about three water breaks,” said Dave Hess, spokesman for Dulles airport. “Inside the terminal, it was very cold be-

cause of the large amount of glass (windows).” But in between New England and Washington, New York City cooled to —22 deg-

The combination of cold and snow over the last week have been blamed for at least 32 deaths in 12 states.

Thermometers dipped to record lows across New England and the Ohio valley, but west of the Appalachians the lows recorded were not as cold as Sunday’s and fewer records were set.

Most of the South also remained below freezing yesterday, with record lows between —lB deg. and —l2 deg. in Alabama and Mississippi.