GRIP OF WINTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1938, Page 7

GRIP OF WINTER

INTENSE COLD IN EUROPE DEATHS AND SUFFERING. AIRMEN KILLED IN ENGLAND. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, December 21. Europe is in the grip of the coldest spell for many years which is causing intense suffering and numerous ’deaths. Rivers and canals are frozen all over Europe, with snow even on the French Riviera. Snow is falling throughout Britain dislocating road and rail traffic. The temperature in London is 10 degrees below freezing point and still dropping. Ten deaths occurred in Britain yesterday. A member of the Royal Air Force was killed when his plane landed in Shropshire and overturned on the frozen surface. A train skidded in ice on the track at Greenwich and four coaches were derailed. The hot-water pipes in six houses at various places froze and caused the boilers to explode, wrecking rooms. One person was killed. Many villages are isolated as the result of a snowfall a foot deep. A message from Berlin reports that the thermometer is below freezing point, the coldest day for 80 years. The River Danube is frozen. Paris reports that factories throughout France are closing down because of their boilers being frozen. A Bucharest report stated that 11 people were frozen to death, and Warsaw reports that 5000 refugees huddled on a “No-man-island” be tween Poland and Germany are undergoing untold sufferings. Six hundred of them are stricken with influenza and 10 are dead.

A Rome correspondent says that the Lagoon at Venice is frozen over.