Half of Europe is shivering from the cold due to the drop in temperatures that, in much of the continent, has been accompanied by intense snowfall to the point of causing the interruption of air and rail transport in several capitals.
This is the case of Munich, whose airport has suspended all operations for at least 24 hours while train service in the southern half of the country has been affected with delays and cancellations.
“Due to the heavy snowfall that continues to fall, there will probably be no air traffic until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow, Sunday, December 3,” the Bavarian capital’s airport reports on its website.
The German authorities “strongly recommend” that passengers do not go to the airport without first checking the status of their flight with their airline.
Early this Saturday, around 320 of the 760 flights scheduled for today had already been cancelled, after around 160 operations had to be canceled last night. The snow has caused the cancellation so far of 48 flights originating in the German city and destined for different Spanish airports, including Madrid-Barajas, Barcelona-El Prat, Alicante, Tenerife South, Palma, Bilbao, Fuerteventura, Gran Canary Islands and Valencia, the airport manager Aena has reported.
Meanwhile, the German railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) reported that due to the “arrival of winter in southern Germany there will be restrictions on rail transport on December 2 and 3.”
In a statement, DB recommends customers postpone their trip, if possible for a date from Monday onwards, since the reservation on trains scheduled for Sunday circulation is already very high.
Public transport has also stopped circulating in Munich because the snowplows are not enough to remove the fresh snow.
The heavy snowfall has also forced the postponement of the Bundesliga match between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin, which was due to take place at 3:30 p.m. local time (1:30 p.m. GMT) at the Allianz Arena, the Bavarian club reported in a statement.
The situation is not much better in Austria where heavy snowfall in recent hours has caused numerous interruptions in road traffic and rail connections by leaving dozens of towns without electricity.
The most affected regions are the Alpine states of Vorarlberg and Tyrol in the western part of the country, as well as Upper and Lower Austria in the east.
Firefighters and roadside assistance services point out that many roads and highway sections were barely passable, with frequent traffic jams and accidents, forcing temporary closures.
In Upper Austria, firefighters even asked citizens to avoid unnecessary road trips due to the heavy snowfall and the danger of driving in such adverse conditions.
The airport in Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol, has been affected by snowfall and has had to cancel numerous flights due to bad weather. According to the Austrian press, so far only one flight to Frankfurt (Germany) has been able to take off from that airport so far.
In Vorarlberg, a landslide left almost a hundred people trapped overnight in a nightclub in the town of Dornbirn. The firefighters managed to rescue them today at 9:30 in the morning local time.
