SEVERE BLIZZARDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1940, Page 6

SEVERE BLIZZARDS

CAUSING MUCH SUFFERING IN EUROPE FATALITIIES IN MANY AREAS. TRAIN AND OTHER ACCIDENTS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, Janaury 12. Europe is suffering' severe cold blizzards, reaching' 132 miles an hour. Temperatures reached 74 degrees below freezing. A blizzard swept the Balkan ‘Peninsula for two days, immobilised transport and broke records for low temperatures. The fate of five snowed-up trains is still unknown.

A German air liner from Athens to Sofia was blown off its course and landed at Belgrade.

Two high school girls at Sofia were found frozen to death near the city.

A policeman in South Bulgaria escaped a pack of wolves only after shooting seven. Ice on the Danube is 14 inches thick. The temperature is 64 degrees below freezing point in Bessarabia, where there -are pitiful scenes. Many people have been frozen to death. Others have been rendered homeless through setting their houses on fire by overheating their stoves. The railways are maintaining only skeleton services, though oil trains, particularly those to Germany, continue to run. Frozen brakes caused one train to bolt, killing four people. A terrific tempest rages on the Black Sea. The Italian steamer Arabia (7025 tons) went aground at Constanza, where shipping is imprisoned by ice. Two Greek steamers are reported to have been lost, and the Rumanian steamer Bucuresti (2499 tons), advised by wireless that she was aground in Greek waters. The cold in Germany has caused many deaths and the coal shortage continues. Temperatures have touched 4 degrees below freezing point. Four thousand civil servants returned home, as it was too cold for work. Other departments worked only two hours. An icy gale blowing at 100 miles an hour is sweeping northern Italy. It hurled a goods train from a viaduct to the road below, killing the driver and many others. Hundreds were injured by a gale which tore a tanker from her moorings at Venice and sank it. The gale also unroofed many houses. Storms interrupted train services as far south as Naples.

Two trains from Germany which should have arrived in Switzerland on Friday are still missing, a radio message reports. The reason given for these and other delays on the German railways by the Germans is the intense cold, which has frozen waterways and thrown an extra burden on the railways. Swiss reports state, however, that apart from the weather military transports are blocking the lines, and that the disorganisation of the railway system is growing.