The European cold wave is intensifying: emergency situations, street accidents and flight cancellations

In the Netherlands, a state of emergency was declared as of tonight, for fear of significant snowfalls that would endanger travel on roads and trains. After significant snowfall at the beginning of the week, the threat now is rain that will freeze the ground and the roads and make them slippery and dangerous. The temperatures this weekend in the Netherlands are expected to dip below ten degrees below zero.

Garages in the country reported that the demand to change to winter tires is breaking records, and that many of them are no longer accepting customers, according to the Dutch newspaper “Telegraph”. In the Utrecht Cathedral, one of the hands of one of the clocks standing on it broke off and collapsed, apparently due to the weight of the snow piled on the clock.

Train traffic is also disrupted due to the severe and unusual weather. Significant delays continued to be recorded at Schiphol Airport, and about a thousand passengers had to sleep in the building during the night. The authorities gave them pillows and blankets.

In France, the current storm – dubbed “Gourti” by the French weather forecasting service – is expected to include heavy snowfall in the country’s Alps as well as in neighboring Switzerland. The authorities in Belgium, Spain and Great Britain also warned of the consequences of the current storm. In Britain, schools were canceled mainly in Wales and the north of the country, and the media warned of what they call a “weather bomb” – heavy snow showers.

Minus 29 degrees in central Germany

The authorities in Germany, calling the storm “Eli”, declared a state of emergency today at noon in Hamburg. About a quarter of a million students stayed at home, traffic in the city is very disrupted, and public transportation is stuttering. In central Germany, a temperature of minus 29 degrees was measured.

Even in Berlin, the intense cold, after the accumulation of ice on the sidewalks, arouses great concern and even significant criticism of the municipality and its dysfunction. Only yesterday (Wednesday) electricity returned to an entire district where about 50 thousand people live, after extreme climate activists burned down a relay station. The municipality carried out the repairs with a significant delay. Mayor Kai Wagner is facing calls for his resignation, after footage of him playing tennis despite the municipal crisis was published in the local media.

One of the biggest concerns is from slipping accidents – the layer of ice that has accumulated on the sidewalks has not been removed, and in many places a safe route has not even been “carved” by dedicated steps. The result: an unusual slip hazard that could have a significant impact on seniors trying to leave the house to stock up on food and medicine.

Hospitals in Berlin report that the emergency rooms are full of long lines of patients with fractures and head injuries, and several of them have announced that their treatment capacity has ended, and they are forced to transfer the patients to other hospitals.

Light snow showers are expected in Berlin today and tomorrow (Friday), but the intense cold will only deepen, and the forecast is for minus 13 degrees this coming Saturday.

Throughout Europe, deaths were recorded mainly in road accidents caused by the difficult conditions. The need to deal with clearing the roads resulted in a severe shortage of gravel mixed with salt used for this purpose, as well as the chemical used to de-ice aircraft before takeoff.