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Snow chaos continues - hundreds wait on the autobahn at night

2021-02-09T04:34:08.038Z


The winter still has parts of Germany firmly under control and is causing traffic jams for miles on the motorways. Hundreds of people are stuck on the A2 overnight. An improvement in the weather is not in sight for the coming days.


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Only the police and rescue workers drive: Autobahn in NRW on Tuesday night

Photo: FRIEDEMANN VOGEL / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock

Heavy snowfalls again caused chaos on many highways in Germany on Tuesday night.

On the

A2 near Bielefeld

, drivers and passengers spent the whole night on the road and sometimes had to stay in their cars for twelve hours in the freezing cold.

In the meantime, a 37-kilometer backwater formed there that stretched as far as Lower Saxony - in both directions it was even more than 70 kilometers together.

"The overall situation is difficult, we are rotating," said a spokesman for the Bielefeld police early Tuesday morning.

The highway was closed in both directions after trucks got stuck on Monday afternoon because of the snow.

"But it will take a long time until the ball has broken up," said a spokeswoman for the NRW control center during the night.

Despite a diversion, the traffic jam had hardly decreased in the early morning hours.

According to the police, the situation near

Dortmund

, where the

A2 was

also closed, was a

little less dramatic

.

Dozens of trucks got stuck on the lane in the direction of Oberhausen on Monday afternoon, although trucks over 7.5 tons were actually banned from driving until 10 p.m.

"The police registered 340 violations of the ban there," said the spokeswoman.

The emergency services provided all those who remained lying down with warm drinks and blankets.

But that should have been little consolation for most of the people: In the meantime, according to the situation center, the backwater was ten kilometers long, but it dissolved during the night.

The situation was chaotic on other motorways as well.

On the

A10 near Spreeau

in Brandenburg, two trucks stood across the slippery road during the night and could neither go forward nor back, as a police spokeswoman said.

On the

A4 in East Hesse

, a traffic jam had meanwhile cleared up during the night - according to the police, some drivers there had stayed in their cars for 15 hours.

In some cases, the traffic was slow to get going again because police officers had to wake up truck drivers who had missed the waiting time.

Transport Minister appeals to the citizens: Refrain from traveling

On Tuesday morning,

commuters

in large parts of Germany have to

be prepared

for further restrictions.

Snow removal and repair teams are on duty for the railway so that rail traffic on the main lines can gradually be resumed by Tuesday evening, the railway said on Monday.

The

long-distance transport

had previously been adjusted completely on Monday on multiple connections.

Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer appealed to the citizens of northern and central Germany to refrain from traveling at least until Wednesday.

"In such extreme conditions, even the best point heating and the best clearing vehicle can reach their limits," said the CSU politician to the newspapers of the Funke media group (Tuesday).

"We are working hard to get the north-south connections free - that we can at least drive to a limited extent," he announced on "Bild Live".

»A new bond is emerging: a small one, but very intense.

Tuesday and Wednesday we will get a lot of snow on the Baltic Sea and Rügen and above all stormy conditions, "the minister said.

But frost is also becoming a challenge, for example in eastern Germany.

Impairments also with the mail delivery

The icy weather, including snowfall, has also impaired Deutsche Post DHL.

On Monday there were delays in the delivery of parcels to sorting centers due to blocked motorways in parts of Germany, said a company spokesman in Bonn.

This had the consequence that the delivery failed in some areas.

The spokesman named North Rhine-Westphalia and Thuringia as examples of federal states that were partially affected.

In Thuringia, the delivery of letters and parcels failed almost completely - only in the Thuringian Forest were a few vehicles in some places.

With the sometimes chaotic road conditions, the health of the employees was in the foreground, according to the Post.


The German Weather Service (DWD) warned of heavy snowfall up to 40 centimeters and snow drifts from Tuesday night, especially in Ostholstein and neighboring districts.

The background for the expected sustained snowfalls and snow drifts in parts of Schleswig-Holstein is primarily the so-called lake effect, as meteorologist Frank Böttcher explained on Monday.

The strong wind brings moisture over the Baltic Sea, which falls over land as snow.

Hard frost follows the snow

Compared to the weekend, the snowfall should decrease overall in the coming days.

The big issue will then be the severe frost - especially at night.

In central and eastern Germany, night frosts of minus 18 degrees should not be uncommon, said meteorologist Martin Jonas.

With wind and dry air, the perceived temperature can even drop to minus 30 degrees at night.

"You should really wrap up warm," warned a meteorologist from the Essen Weather Service in view of the cold.

The wind can make it very uncomfortable.

Aid organizations meanwhile increased their efforts for the homeless.

In Hanover, for example, the Johanniter “cold bus” was on the road again on Monday evening to provide the needy with hot food and drink.

According to a spokeswoman, the city of Frankfurt had already extended the opening times of the winter night in the B-level of the Eschenheimer Tor subway station at the weekend.

There are 150 beds there, of which around 100 were last occupied at night.

According to the spokeswoman, about 80 people stayed outside in the past few days despite the weather.

You would be visited every night by the employees of the cold bus and invited to be driven to a homeless aid facility.


Icon: The mirror

oka / dpa

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2021-02-09

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