Bitter weather continues in Europe

Bitter weather continues in Europe

Tens of thousands of people have had travel plans disrupted by Eurostar cancellations [AFP] Bitter weather conditions in Europe are continuing to disrupt travel plans for thousands of people over the Christmas holiday season. Freezing temperatures are expected to disrupt air, road and train travel on Tuesday. However, Eurostar restarted a partial train service between the UK and France from the Gare du Nord station in Paris to London on Tuesday morning. The service had been closed for three days leaving thousands of people stranded. The first train departed at about 8am (0700 GMT) carrying 750 passengers, the majority of whom had been stranded for days. More than 2,000 passengers were trapped inside the trains on Friday and Saturday after five trains broke down and 50,000 people have had their journey's cancelled. Long queues "The queues are big, stretching around the lounges, and they have only got longer this morning," Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, at London's Kings Cross Station, said. "Those travelling on Eurostar today are not people with tickets to travel today but those who were supposed to be travelling on Saturday and Sunday." Ian Nunn, a senior Eurostar executive, told Al Jazeera: "People are bearing with us. We are doing our level best to deal with the backlog. "We are asking people to only turn up if they have tickets for Saturday or Sunday. The priority is to deal with passengers who are stranded and have been so for two or three days. "[To our passengers] we say sorry. We are refunding tickets and trying to be practical." Weather forecasters are expecting snow to continue falling in the UK, northern France and the Netherlands. The low temperatures, which have fallen to as about -30C in Germany and -20C in Poland over past days, and heavy snows are raising fears of further deaths across the continent. At least 80 people have died in Europe, including 42 mostly homeless people in Poland and 27 others in Ukraine. 'Big inconvenience' Warsaw, Poland's capital, has suffered temperatures of -15C below average, while Russia has also been feeling its heaviest snow of the season. Temperatures are expected to rise on Thursday, with westerly wind chills dropping and central European temperatures increasing by 5 or 6C. Some airports, including Frankfurt, are beginning to allow aircraft to take off, but flight disruptions are expected to continue. Flights have been cancelled in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain and main highways were blocked across Europe where some regions had more than 50cm of snow. Challands said: "The weather is still incredibly cold here and its not looking to get any better any time soon. Temperatures are still in minus figures all over the continent. "Mostly people are trying to get back for Christmas to see their families, so it is a big inconveniece for them." The French government has said that it will investigate the breakdown of Eurostar trains, which they believe may be due to more than the unusually dry snow sucked into train engines the firm has blamed.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies