EUROPE’S BITTER WINTER

Evening Star, Issue 25996, 10 January 1947, Page 7

EUROPE’S BITTER WINTER

COLDEST FOR MANY YEARS PEOPLE FROZEN TO DEATH NORMAL ACTIVITY PARALYSED (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) • (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 9. Reports from many parts of Europe and also India indicate that the cold spell, which still has much of the Continent in its icy grip, is the worst since the winter of 1940-41, when some. of the severest conditions during the past 50 years were experienced. For the past nine days temperatures over most of Germany have been from 10 to 20deg below freezing point. Canals have more than a foot of ice and snow on them, and in many of the large cities, starved for fuel iind exposed by war damage, conditions are described as desperate. It has been confirmed, that people were frozen to death in Hamburg during the past three days and more than 100 cases of frost bite are reported in Berlin. Similar conditions prevail in Italy, where 14 deaths are reported. In some parts of the Italian peninsula temperatures were the lowest recorded in living memory. Rome had its first snowfall for many years, and in Trieste the thermometer fell to 10.5 deg Fahrenheit. Snow fell as far south as Taranto and even _in Sicily temperatures are below freezing-point. Milan, Turin, and all cities of Northern Italy are under a thick blanket, while in Venice canals are frozen and gondolas have been crushed in the quicklyforming ice. Many of the northern passes through the Apeninnes have been partially blocked by snow. VIENNA BADLY HIT.

Temperatures below zero Fahrenheit have been recorded in many parts of Austria. In Vienna, where factories have already been closed for a month owing to a lack of fuel, there is an almost complete paralysis of all normal activity. Only one newspaper was published in the Capital on Wednesday, and in some hospitals operations had to be carried out by the light of acetylene lamps because the electricity supply has completely failed. IMPROVEMENT IN BRITAIN.

Although snow fell in many parts of the British Isles, France, and countries of the Western European seaboard, the cold spell has moderated in this area as a result of a depression moving in from the Atlantic. To-day all traces of snow had disappeared from Southern England and conditions are, rapidly improving in the North. In parts of Ireland and the English lakelands district, however, there is a serious threat of flooding. ' . '