EUROPE’S COLD WAVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 February 1940, Page 8

EUROPE’S COLD WAVE

MISERIES IN GERMANY. [BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.! . LONDON, February 11. A Rotterdam message says that the cold wave throughout Germany has revived misery. The railways, in spite of the shortage of supplies, cannot distribute foodstuffs without recourse to the canals and rivers, many of which are frozen. It will be a colossal-w r ar-time task, the message adds, to remedy the railways’ shortcomings, whic hare a result of neglect of rolling stock in the carrying-out of the four-year plan. Consignees are liable to punishment unless by working oh Sundays and holidays they clear the trucks in the stipulated time. The shortage of coal and potatoes has closed down factories and greengrocers’ shops. A Bucharest report says that the Danube is again frozen, and heavy falls of snow have delayed transport. From Copenhagen it is reported that a hard frost for 26 consecutive days has brought to a standstill all the wafers south of Skaw. It is possible t.-. walk from Jutland to Sweden across the ice-bound Kattegat. This is Relieved to be unprecedented. DEATHS AND SUFFERING (Recd. Feb. 13, 2.30 p.m.). LONDON, February 12. The great ice-claw, stretching from the Arctic to the Black Sea, and westward to Holland, is again clutching Europe, and has already caused hundreds of deaths, spread epidemics of influenza among thousands, immobilised sea and land transport, and 1 intensified food and fuel shortage. Temperatures are far below freezing point. A violent snowstorm, combined with a heavy gale, swept the ice-bound Kattegat, heralding a new period of suffering for Northern Europe; The temperature was 52 below freezing point in Denmark, the lowest since 1895. Two Danish icebreakers' were trapped when endeavouring to free ten ships.

SKATING ACROSS SEA COPENHAGEN,, February 12, Twenty-five Swedish tourists, laden with luggage, skated from Sweden to Denmark, over the frozen Sound, for the first time in seven hundred years. The Danish Government has forbidden householders to use hot water. Scores of people fainted’ from cold in the streets of Copenhagen. Others were sent to the hospital suffering from frostbite. | Germany is suffering acutely. A' serious influenza epidemic has broken out in Berlin. The ground is too hard for burials. The mortuaries are crammed with bodies awaiting the thaw. The shortage of vegetables is! most serious. Dynamite was used' to blow potatoes from the frozen earth. I Thousands of deer, sheep and wild game were frozen to death. Rail andi road chaos has increased, Communications with Denmark are cut off.