WORST FOR 21 YEARS

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 February 1947, Page 7

WORST FOR 21 YEARS

FIERCE BLIZZARD IN NORTH OF ENGLAND . SNOWDRIFTS 12 FEET DEEP (Rec. 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, Feb. 4. Although Southern England is thawing out after the recent big freeze a fierce blizzard is raging in the north, where many villages are cut off by snowdrifts 10 to 12 feet deep, after the worst night for 21 years. Because of the snowdrifts about 600 vehicles were involved in an immense traffic block stretchingseveral miles on the Great North Road between Grantham and Stamford. The police estimate that it will take two or three days to sort out the tangle. Passengers travelling between Rochdale and Oldham were forced to spend the night in a train which ran into a deep snowdrift. Three buses, containing 78 women and children, who left Hull yesterday afternoon for a pantomime in Leeds were stranded all night on their return journey in snowdrifts six to 10 feet deep. Efforts were still being made this afternoon to free the buses. Communications were disorganised in the Derbyshire district of Lincolnshire Wolds, where villages were isolated. Householders will have to dig through snow to get out of their houses. It is still snowing bard. The southern thaw brought flood waters waist deep on the roads in the Saxmundham district of Suffolk.