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Heavy snowfall disrupts traffic in Netherlands

05 December 2010 02:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A blizzard blanketed the Netherlands and the rest of Western Europe on Saturday with snowfalls up to 20 cm in some places, severely disrupting traffic, APA reports quoting Xinhua News Agency.

Train traffic around major Dutch cities of Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht was crippled while air traffic experienced great inconvenience. The weather caused less problems on the road as a lot of people decided to stay home.

Dozens of flight cancels or delays were reported across the country as the Eindhoven aiport encountered problems and the Rotterdam airport had to close for a while for incoming and departing flights. Several outbound flights from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam faced difficulties in the morning because it is snowing a lot in other European countries as well.

Air traffic to airports particularly in Spain, Great Britain, Germany and France was therefore limited. Five hundred until a thousand stranded passengers will spend the night at Schiphol airport.

Railways were affected, too, especially in central Netherlands. The situation was less chaotic than that of last year’s winter, but Dutch railways NS and ProRail can’t avoid all of the new problems. Trains were moving across the country with less frequency than normal.

The snow also caused inconvenience to other traffic. The roads were slippery, which led to dangerous situations. Because few people decided to hit the road by car there weren’ t major problems and even fewer traffic jams than on a normal Saturday. In Amsterdam and The Hague the bus and tram lines were disrupted with buses and trams driving very slowly or not driving at all.