FROSTS IN EUROPE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26354, 8 January 1947, Page 6

FROSTS IN EUROPE

GERMANS HEAVILY HIT INDUSTRY AT STANDSTILL (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 7. Almost the whole of the United Kingdom is covered with snow. London, with a maximum of 28 degrees, had its coldest day since January, 1942. To-night the snow is freezing hard, and trains are slowed down and road services curtailed. Reuter’s Hamburg correspondent says that ice-breakers are out in Kiel Cainal. The inner harbour of Kiel is also freezing. Thirty-one thousand tons of coal are locked up on frozen-ih Rhine barges. In Hamburg it has not been so cold since the big frost of 1928. The thermometer dropped to 35 degrees < below freezing point, and all industry has ceased. Places of amusement are closed, and even some British messes are without heat or lighting. The misery of the poorer Germans is intense. Herded in cellars, Nissen huts, and ruined houses, they have reached a state of apathy. Children are in rags and shoeless. In Bremen, however, nurseries with specially heated rooms, have been opened as refuges for children up to two years of age. Reuter’s Vienna correspondent says that 31 degrees of frost were recorded in parts of Austria, with frosts 20 below in Vienna. Numerous cases of frost-bite have been admitted to hospital. Rome reports nine deaths from cold, including an escaped prisoner. The first snow since 1942 blanketed Rome.