Snow brings travel chaos, power cuts to Britain

LONDON, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- A belt of heavy snow that began falling in the early hours and continued throughout the day caused chaos across Britain Friday, leading to hundreds of cancelled flights and train journeys.

Flights at London's Heathrow Airport were severely disrupted, and one of the airport's two runways was closed in the middle of the day as teams of employees moved in to clear snow and ice. The runway was later reopened.

There were more than 400 flights cancelled, with inbound flights from European continental airports such as Amsterdam or Paris Charles de Gaulle hard hit.

Snow falls of up to 30 cm in some areas of Wales were reported by local media.

A weather expert at MeteoGroup told Xinhua on Friday night that there was no letup in the cold weather over the weekend.

"Temperatures will struggle to reach 0 degree centigrade on Saturday in many areas. Further falls of snow of 2-5 cm are likely in some areas," he said.

The weather expert said temperatures would be too low over much of Britain for the snow to thaw out. "Snow will continue to cover Britain into Monday and Tuesday of next week," he said.

Southampton Airport in the south of England was closed, as well as Birmingham Airport in the Midlands region, although both reopened later in the day.

Snow and ice caused cancellations and delays on the railways, with the high-speed Eurostar linking London with France through the Channel Tunnel experiencing cancelled trains.

Trains on the Southeastern railways network south of London suffered delays and cancellations, and many trains were forced to run below their usual speed for fear that higher speeds would cause ice to fly up off the track and smash train windows.

Other train companies across England were forced to cancel trains and operate emergency timetables.

More than 3,000 schools across the country were closed, and power lines to 5,000 homes in Wales were cut leaving them without power.

But the snow was not all bad news. Police in the English Midlands followed a line of footprints after a burglary at a house in the Solihull suburb of the city of Birmingham to arrest a suspected burglar.

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