As of: January 18, 2024, 4:43 p.m
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Vehicles drive on the highway during heavy snowfall.
© David Young/dpa
Perfect weather for building snowmen, but bad weather for driving: slippery conditions and snow caused chaos on the roads on Thursday.
Where was the situation particularly bad?
Mainz - A lot of patience was required on the streets in Rhineland-Palatinate on Thursday.
Because of the snow and slippery conditions, traffic jams stretched for kilometers on the highways.
The Autobahn 61 near Rheinböllen (Rhein-Hunsrück district), for example, was temporarily closed in both directions on Thursday due to slippery conditions.
“There’s a complete sheet of ice on it,” said a police spokesman.
Because of the slippery conditions, there was no progress, especially for trucks, the police wrote on Whatsapp.
She asked truck drivers to drive to the next rest area.
50 kilometers of traffic jam on the A61
According to the Koblenz police, a traffic jam of around 50 kilometers formed between Emmelshausen and Kruft on the A61 heading south.
Gritting services and the technical relief agency are in action.
The Mainz police called for rescue lanes to be created.
“As we are told, in some places neither emergency services nor gritting vehicles can get through.”
The weather also caused chaos on other highways in Rhineland-Palatinate.
According to the police, there was a solid blanket of snow on the A63 between Alzey and Kaiserslautern.
Several vehicles broke down on the shoulder, trucks got stuck and cars slipped into the ditch.
The West Palatinate police reported stalled and stalled trucks on the A6.
This highway was also temporarily closed.
There was a weather-related accident on the A60 on Thursday morning.
It has now been closed between Ingelheim East and Ingelheim West in the direction of Bingen.
The night on the A3
Black ice and snow had already caused a kilometer-long traffic jam on the A3 during the night.
“Some of the trucks slipped, so that the entire motorway was blocked and traffic in the direction of Cologne came to a standstill,” said the technical operations management of the Neuwied district during the night.
According to an initial estimate, there were around 2,000 people in the traffic jam.
The technical relief agency towed trucks free and the fire department looked after the people in the vehicles.
“We started distributing hot drinks relatively early,” said Tim Wessel, press spokesman for the fire departments of the Asbach municipality.
“There were people there who were just happy that they got a warm coffee because they had already been stuck in a traffic jam for four hours.” In some vehicles, the fuel ran out or the battery failed.
“The people were then taken into personnel carriers so that they could sit in warmth,” said Wessel.
The fire department also treated a few medical emergencies.
“We had a hypoglycemia and a panic attack where we were able to calm down,” said Wessel.
There were also warm drinks for the emergency services themselves.
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In the afternoon, the Koblenz police announced that the situation on the motorways was gradually easing.
The cautious all-clear also came from West Palatinate and Mainz: the traffic situation appears to be calming down, wrote the West Palatinate police.
And the Mainz colleagues reported: “The overall situation is easing significantly, thanks to the onset of sunshine.”
Accidents and failures
The Rhine-Palatinate police said at midday that there had already been 50 accidents in the Vorder- and Southern Palatinate since the morning.
The Mainz police reported similar numbers at midday - there were 46 accidents since 6 a.m.
In Saarland there were 34 accidents across the country by midmorning.
A van driver died in the Eifel on Wednesday.
It was said that there were “wintry road conditions”.
In Mainz, tram operations were completely stopped due to the weather.
Bus services in several cities were restricted.
In Koblenz, operations were able to resume during midday.
In addition, there was a warning strike by employees in the private bus industry - this also led to cancellations.
This is how it continues
According to the German Weather Service, there may still be slippery conditions on Friday night.
A few snow showers can be expected in the second half of the night, but there will mostly be no precipitation.
The snow showers should gradually subside on Friday.
Temperatures rise to minus 3 to 0 degrees, along the Rhine to 1 degree.
dpa