Enlarge image
Two cars collided near Dornstadt in Baden-Württemberg in winter weather
Photo: IMAGO/Arnulf Hettrich
Anyone out and about in southern Germany on Wednesday sometimes had to be particularly careful: a dangerous black ice situation had set in between the Black Forest and the foothills of the Alps, as reported by the German Weather Service (DWD).
Especially in southern Baden there were many accidents with several injuries.
No planes could take off and land at Munich Airport in the afternoon.
A spokesman for Munich Airport told the dpa news agency that around 150 flights had been canceled and 26 diverted.
The airport's entire crew was deployed with 150 snow clearing vehicles.
Flights were diverted to Stuttgart and Vienna, among other places.
In the afternoon some landings were possible again.
Planes could not start at the airport initially because they could not be de-iced due to the freezing rain, according to the information.
However, both runways were reopened by the evening.
Freiburg sets up treatment places in the exhibition hall
In Baden-Württemberg, there were disabilities in the southern Baden area in particular.
After numerous black ice accidents, the city of Freiburg has estimated the number of operations that the integrated control center has received since Wednesday morning at around 250.
Pedestrians and cyclists in particular fell and were injured on mirror-smooth roads, the southern Baden city announced.
There were hardly any car accidents.
The focus was in the city of Freiburg.
In a kind of makeshift hospital in a large exhibition hall in the city, around ten people were treated until the afternoon, it was said.
15 treatment places were set up there in order to relieve the emergency rooms of the clinics, which are overburdened mainly due to black ice.
The situation had relaxed significantly in the afternoon, a city spokesman said.
Due to black ice, the city of Freiburg had also closed large parts of the Münsterplatz, which is popular with tourists, and the main shopping street in the old town.
In Munich, the municipal cemeteries were also closed on Wednesday due to the risk of ice.
In addition, Deutsche Bahn had to temporarily suspend regional traffic between Munich and Buchloe due to the weather.
The zoo in Augsburg also closed.
In Lower Bavaria, the police reported 20 accidents with 5 injuries in the afternoon.
The police also recorded several accidents due to slippery roads on Autobahn 9 in northern Upper Bavaria.
Relaxation in some areas - but still possible black ice in the extreme south
Meanwhile, snowfall in Rhineland-Palatinate caused many traffic accidents, and buses were canceled.
In the low mountain ranges, trucks crossed on slippery slopes and cars collided on slippery roads, according to the Koblenz police headquarters.
There were also a number of accidents in the north and south of Rhineland-Palatinate - mostly only with damage to the bodywork.
In the afternoon and evening, the meteorologists expected the black ice situation to relax in some areas.
Especially in the extreme south, there could still be regional black ice into the night.
On Thursday it will be heavily overcast in the south, with areas of light snowfall or freezing rain that will subside by noon.
Otherwise the sun often comes out in addition to local fog and high fog, wrote the DWD.
In the extreme north, however, further, sometimes heavy snow showers are to be expected.
kko/dpa