BRITAIN: Snow showers and Arctic winds swept down the east coast of Britain yesterday, trapping thousands of motorists and disrupting airports.
Hundreds of passengers trying to travel between Ireland and Stansted, north of London, were stranded when the airport closed.
Motorways to the north of London ground to a halt after a series of minor accidents, and airports struggled to get flights away with staff caught up in the traffic. Gritting vans were unable to complete the salting of motorways north east of London on Thursday before the surface froze earlier than forecast. This caused accidents which blocked the carriageways, a Highways Agency spokesman said.
With more snow forecast, the Transport Secretary, Mr Alistair Darling, said he wanted to know the reason for the chaos.
"Snowfall in January is hardly unexpected. I have asked the Highways Agency, the rail industry, tube and local authorities for an explanation for why the transport system in some parts of the country became paralysed so quickly," he said.
In central France, more than 1,000 motorists were stranded for several hours overnight on a motorway after heavy snows left around 250 trucks stuck and blocking traffic.
The A20 motorway between Limoges to Bessines was reopened to car traffic yesterday, but authorities said all highways in the Haute-Vienne department remained closed to truck traffic.
The worst affected motorway in Britain was the M11, northeast of London, parts of which were shut down, stranding motorists and lorry-drivers in their vehicles overnight. The Freight Transport Association said that despite snow having been forecast, roads had not been gritted, which had cost industry tens of thousands of pounds. Its director of logistics, Mr Mick Jackson, was one of thousands of motorists forced to spend the night on the M11.
"It was completely avoidable," he told BBC television by phone from his car. "As far as I could see the stretch of the road I was on did not have salt down."
The Highways Agency insisted its gritting lorries had been salting motorways and trunk roads from midday on Thursday. But it said snow showers, accidents and heavy traffic prevented the gritters finishing the job on the M11 and the M25 motorway which circles the capital.
"Clearly we will be reviewing our procedures," said a spokesman.
Also affected was Heathrow Airport which cancelled over 150 arriving and departing flights.Many others faced delays of up to two hours.
Forecasters said the winds, which originated in the Arctic, would bring more snow overnight to north and east of London in Lincolnshire, East Anglia, Cambridgeshire and the east Midlands.
London Underground said some lines had been "hard hit by the weather", with several stations closed. - (Reuters/AFP)