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From Istanbul to Moscow, cold snap wreaks havoc across Europe (PHOTOS)
People
walk on the Istiklal avenue during snowfalls in Istanbul on January
7, 2017. © Yasin Akgul / AFP
Bone-freezing
cold, heavy snowstorms, and floods have been plaguing the European
continent this week, causing power outages, traffic jams, cancelled
flights, and even a stream of plastic eggs with toys washing up on a
German island.
On
Saturday, heavy precipitation paralyzed Istanbul, Turkey. Around
6,000 passengers found themselves stranded as hundreds of flights to
and from the city's main Ataturk Airport were cancelled due to the
snowstorm.
The
Bosphorus Strait was closed to ships due to poor visibility, cutting
off the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea from the Mediterranean.
Many
drivers abandoned their cars and walked rather than waiting for
streets to be cleaned. Istanbul’s metro system operated throughout
the night to deal with a sudden passenger spike.
People
walk during snowfalls in Istanbul on January 7, 2017. © Ozan Kose /
AFP
On
Friday, blizzards and snowstorms wreaked havoc across Bulgaria,
forcing the closure of major roadways and the airport in the coastal
city of Varna, as well as delays at Bucharest International Airport.
Bulgaria
also experienced power outages after a nuclear power plant reactor in
neighboring Romania was shut down by operator Nuclearelectrica. The
company said the snowstorm caused interference in the power grid.
A
man walks in a suburb of Sofia after heavy snowfall on January 7,
2017. © Nikolay Doychinov / AFP
In
Poland, local authorities said Friday was the deadliest day of the
winter, with seven victims of the elements found throughout the day.
In
Serbia, the weather caused a massive car collision involving 27
vehicles on a highway connecting the capital Belgrade and the city of
Niš. Reports said 22 people were injured in the incident, including
six children.
The
entire southwestern part of the country, where 10,000 people live,
was blocked off from the rest of Serbia by the storm.
In
Ukraine, over 70 towns and villages throughout the country
experienced power outages, the national emergency service reported.
Ukraine boosted consumption of natural gas in response to the cold
snap, with forecasts that in January it may burn twice more fuel from
underground storage tanks than planned.
A
man is seen here walking on Kozhukhovsky lake in Moscow as lows drop
to minus 24 degrees Celsius. January 6, 2017. © Maksim Blinov /
Sputnik
Moscow,
where Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas on Friday, experienced
its coldest Christmas night in 120 years. Temperatures dropped to
almost -30C in the city and as low as -32.7C in Moscow Region, the
Russian national meteorological service said. It was the coldest
Christmas night in Moscow since 1891, when the temperature dropped to
-32.7C.
A
car covered with snow stands amidst the flood on January 4, 2017 in
Wismar, northeastern Germany, as the German Baltic Sea coast was hit
by storm "Axel". © Jens Büttner / AFP
On
Wednesday night, the storm Axel hit northern Germany, causing a flood
with water levels rising by almost two meters in some areas. In
Flensburg and Lübeck, the rising water lifted parked cars and sent
them drifting down the street. In Bavaria, there was a spike in
traffic accidents, with 160, or triple the usual level, reported in
one day.
On
a lighter note, residents of the German island Langeoog found an
unexpected surprise on Thursday morning. Tens of thousands of plastic
eggs with toys inside had been washed ashore. The eggs apparently
came from a freighter ship which was transporting them for a Danish
firm and lost them in the sea due to the storm.
DW | Global Ideas
Tens of thousands of #plastic eggs with toys inside washed up on German beach after Storm #Axel http://dw.com/p/2VKgz
#disaster #Weather
“The
surprise eggs have found their way to freedom,” Mayor
Uwe Garrels commented. Children from the small community of less than
1,000 people quickly gathered as many eggs as they could.
Kirillo-Belozersky
Monastery in Kirillov, Vologda Region. January 4, 2017.© Alexey
Kudenko / Sputnik
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