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Snowball Kills Boy, Traffic Disrupted, Record Lows, as Europe Freezes
2005 03 01

LONDON (AFP) - A giant snowball crushed a 10-year-old Scottish boy to death and parts of Germany experienced record low temperatures as severe winter weather continued to disrupt air and road traffic in Europe.

Peter Strang was playing with friends when a giant snowball they had been making rolled down a hill and engulfed him, said police at Torphins, Aberdeenshire.

Britain was enduring a late-winter freeze, with many areas shivering under the coldest nights of the season so far over the weekend.

Parts of Germany recorded the coldest temperatures in decades. At the Zugspitze mountain in southern Germany, the country's highest point, temperatures dropped to minus 29.4 degrees Celsius (minus 20.9 degrees Fahrenheit), the lowest since 1901.

The Black Forest saw its coldest February day in 50 years with Wendelstein recording minus 20.5 degrees Celsius and Felberg minus 18.1 degrees.

In France, a 36 year-old man who last Monday absconded from a hospital near Nancy in eastern France where he had just undergone a hip operation, was found frozen to death only 300 metres (yards) from the hospital, police said. The frozen body, dressed only in a track suit, was recovered in snow on Saturday.

In central France, a local express train was stuck at dawn Monday in a snowdrift near Clermont-Ferrand. Passengers stayed in the heated carriages till afternoon when their coaches were pulled clear. Bus traffic was disrupted around Besancon in eastern France because of icy roads.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said he was mobilising all available resources to protect the city's homeless. Two gymnasiums have been requisitioned as additional temporary shelters.

Nelly Olin, French junior minister tasked with caring for the underprivileged, said the government was on top of the situation, as a heightened alert level for care of homeless people took effect with extra temporary shelters in 20 different departments, or districts, hit by cold.

Airport traffic was badly hit in Spain. Snow and ice impairing technical equipment caused major disruption at Barcelona airport, causing domestic flight cancellations.

Barcelona's situation had a knock-on effect at Madrid, with only 38 out of 146 scheduled departures and arrivals by mid-afternoon.
A Brussels-Barcelona flight had to be diverted to Valencia, and Barcelona-Milan flights were cancelled.

Heavy winds disrupted travel across Portugal, cancelling or delaying several flights, suspending a passenger ferry service and knocking down trees which blocked roads, officials said.

Lisbon international airport, Portugal's busiest, cancelled four flights -- two Alitalia flights to Rome and Milan and two Iberia flights to Madrid and Barcelona -- airport management company ANA said.

Wind gusts of over 50 kilometres (30 miles) an hour forced the suspension of a key passenger ferry service linking downtown Lisbon with its southern suburbs. Winds knocked down more than 60 trees across the country, temporarily blocking a highway.

Earth Changes TV

Article From: http://www.earthchangestv.com/secure/2005/article_7092.php


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