SUB-ZERO COLD GRIPS EUROPE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5285, 23 December 1946, Page 5

SUB-ZERO COLD GRIPS EUROPE

(Press Assn. — Rec. 9.30 p.m.)

'RIVERS PROZEN OVER even big ben feels the chill

c. LONDON, Dec. 22. England and western Europe are in the grip of the most intense cold this winter. The Vistula is frozen over and the temperature at Prague was 28 degrees below freezing -point. The Rhine, for the first time ^since 1929, is ieebound at. three points in the Prench oc-cupation-al zone. The Hamburg radio saj'-s floating ice caused a suspension of all navigation on the Rhine between Bonn and Wesel in the British zone. ^ The Rhine in the French zone is ice-bound, threatening a complete hold-up of traffic for several weeks. Reuter says that thickening fog throughout England dislocated railway time-ta'bles. Driving on the iceeoated roads is nightmarish. Up to 20 degrees of frost were recorded in parts of southern England. •Several of the chimes of Big Ben missed when striking d .p.m. The chimes, on one occasion, were accompanied by a peculiar grating* noise, caused by partieles of ice fiying off the mechanism, and being crush.ed in tbe cogs of the chiniing gear, Southern England yesterday had a five per cent. cut ih its electricity, lasting two and a-half hours. It is the* largest cut this winter. The promised warmer airs failed to arrive in the Midlands and southern Counties. The shortest day was for London also the coldest of the winter, wich temperatures ranging from 20 to 34 degrees in the different Home Counties. All the factories in the Hanover region will close to-day till January 1, because the weather has slowed coal deliveries until istocks in the pow stations are at a dangerous level, says Reuter's Herford correspondent.