Severe Weather In Europe

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 February 1947, Page 7

Severe Weather In Europe

One of the coldest spells ever experienced has stopped all shipping round the coast of Sweden, says Reuter’s correspondent in Stockholm. The temperature is 56 degrees below zero in some parts of the country. The sound between Sweden and Denmark is solid ice, and the Baltic is freezing over. At least 20 ships are frozen fast round the Swedish coasts. Reuter’s correspondent in Hamburg reports that more than 100 people have already died of cold in Berlin. There are 350 in-patients and 25,772 out-patients with frost symptoms in the Berlin hospitals, and 1000 inpatients with pneumonia. Lack of Fuel. All Frankfurt’s cinemas, theatres, and schools are closing to-morrow because of lack of fuel. The British United Press correspondent in Turin says the Fiat works, one of the largest motor factories in Europe, are closing to-morrow for 12 days because of the lack of electricity. The Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Vienna reports that almost all industry in the British zone of Austria has been at a standstill since December through lack of fuel and lack of water power as a result of freezing. There has been no fuel for domestic purposes for several weeks, and since December 13 there has been an average of 17 degrees of frost. Ramparts of snow are six feet high in the streets. The correspondent of the Associated Press in Frankfurt reports that

the American and German authorities, as a result of the acute coal and power shortage in the United States zone, have ordered 80 per cent, of the factories in Wurttemberg and Baden to close down for a period of about 10 days to save coal for essential services and food-processing plants. The shut-down will make 250,000 workers idle. Cold Wave in America. According to a New York message the trans-continental Canadian Pacific Railway service resumed after the longest main line snow blockage in Canadian railroad history. Gangs had been clearing snow for 60 hours. Officials decline to predict when the majority of branch lines in southern Saskatchewan will be opened. . The extreme cold wave which has been blanketing the North American Continent, continues with gale force winds in the east, tearing down telegraph wires, and snowstorms stranding motorists and delaying trains into New York as much as two hours. Central Florida reports the first snow in 29 years, and the citrus crop which is normally worth many millions of dollars, is threatened. There are 240,000 workers idle because of the shortage of industrial gas caused by the cold wave. Temperatures in New York have been ranging from five degrees to as low as the twenties in the last few lays.