BERLIN (AP) – A snowstorm and strong winds hit northern and western Germany on Sunday, forcing trains to cancel trips and leading to hundreds of road accidents. Police said 28 people were injured on icy roads.
The German Weather Service DWD urged people to stay at home and authorities brought homeless people into hot shelters amid temperatures below zero.
National train operator Deutsche Bahn has said the main train routes between Hamburg and Hanover, Berlin and the west will be canceled as snow drifts pile up on the tracks and power lines. Some train connections in the east were also canceled, although most snow fell in the northwest.
Police in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia said early Sunday they had counted 222 accidents since Saturday afternoon due to the bad weather conditions. According to them, two people under the age of 28 were seriously injured.
In the western city of Muenster, among the hardest hit places, there was so much snow in the streets that ambulances could no longer drive and all public transport was closed. More than 30 centimeters (almost 12 inches) of snow fell, which in some parts piled up to 1 meter (more than 3 feet), and more snow was expected to fall on Sunday.
In Wuppertal, in the west of Germany, firefighters had to rescue six passengers from the city’s famous elevated railway, after a train stopped moving due to the icy conditions. They had to climb ladders to reach the people in the train and help them to the ground, reports dpa.
City authorities in the western city of Hagen walked through the streets at night and woke up homeless people sleeping outside and took them to shelters, reports the German news agency dpa. In Berlin, the capital’s largest shelter, a tent city on the outskirts, was cleared early Saturday to make sure people do not freeze to death in temperatures below zero.
While the west of the country was icy, southern Germany experienced mild, spring-like temperatures.
The unusual gap between weather and temperature was caused by a polar vortex pushing icy air from the Arctic to northern Germany, just as a low-pressure front brings wet, warm weather from the southwest, the DWD said.
In the Netherlands, snow covered a large part of the country, forcing the government to cancel a weekly crisis meeting to discuss the coronavirus pandemic. Train services have been suspended and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has warned passengers of possible cancellations.
The national broadcaster NOS showed images of a snowball fight early in the morning in which locals and police were involved on Dam Square in Amsterdam.
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Mike Corder reported from Wekerom, the Netherlands.