A YOUNG woman was found frozen to death in northern France yesterday as snow and ice blanketed large areas of the country.
The woman's body was found outside a shopping precinct at Bruay la Bussiere, near Lille, d'police said. She was aged about 25 and carried no identification documents.
Her death was the first recorded as a result of the cold snap to hit France.
The weather caused buses and commuter trains into Paris to run late in the morning rush hour, and disrupted ferries and flights.
In Normandy, some 30 trucks were stranded in the Calvados producing area, local officials said. Meanwhile in Germany, police reported more than 1,100 car accidents on frozen roads across the northern part of the country.
Driving snow and black ice brought traffic to a virtual standstill in the northern state of Schleswig Holstein, bordering Denmark, and all schools in the state were closed.
A driver and a passenger died in Versmold near Guetersloh when the vehicle went out of control on an icy road and collided with a school bus. Another driver died on a motorway near Moers when his car hit a salt spreader at about 200 kph.
In Denmark and southern Sweden, blizzards created havoc disrupting rail, road and ferry traffic, closing schools and stranding some motorists.