Snow snarls European travel

Driving snow and icy winds caused traffic chaos across much of Europe yesterday as temperatures dipped close to minus 40 Celsius, sending motorists slip-sliding on the roads and delaying flights and rail travel.

The motorway connecting Budapest with Vienna was closed after about 60 vehicles crashed in a multiple pile-up following heavy snow in Hungary overnight. An eight-year-old Serbian boy was killed and more than 10 people injured, some seriously.

The route was briefly reopened but was shut again after a truck hit a fire engine while it carried out rescue work in the aftermath of the pile-up, Hungarian state news agency MTI said.

Only one runway was open at Budapest's main international airport and rail journeys were also delayed.

In Slovakia, holiday traffic ahead of the new year ground to a halt as the main road out of Bratislava was closed after between 40 and 60 cars were involved in a giant smash.

Police said at least three people had died on the roads and 20 were hurt.

The army was called in to help clear the roads linking the capital with central and northern Slovakia as 1.5 metre high snow drifts made conditions even more treacherous.

"The highway from Bratislava to Trnava is impassable, there are a lot of cars just sitting and waiting," police spokesman Marta Bujnakova said. Trnava is some 45 kilometres northeast of Bratislava.

Slovak authorities closed one of the border crossings with Austria and police said only cars fitted with winter tyres would be allowed into the country until conditions improved. Motorists heading to the hills for holiday skiing were caught up in jams across southern Germany.

"We had a lot to do today and last night. Especially on the classic routes to go skiing in southern Germany there have been many delays and traffic jams," a spokesman for the automobile club ADAC said.

According to Meteomedia, a private weather service, the coldest temperature measured in Germany overnight was minus 38.9C at Funtensee Lake in southern Germany.

Switzerland also shivered, with MeteoSwiss meteorological experts recording the lowest temperature so far this season. Coldest was La Brevine, 1,050 metres high and often dubbed "Switzerland's Siberia", with minus 35.9C.

Two homeless people have been found dead in Rome over the past two days and Florence woke on Thursday to the heaviest snowfall in 21 years. Temperatures in the north reached -29C.

A state of emergency was declared around Naples. The Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium issued a severe weather warning for the southern regions of Namur and Liege, saying conditions were already "very dangerous".

A burst of freezing rain following snow in France left many roads dangerously slippery. Around Tours, police reported a dozen accidents within an hour of the ice forming.

In southern Poland, heavy snowfalls made sliproads to the region's main motorway inaccessible and Krakow's airport said it was experiencing delays of up to one hour, due partly to problems elsewhere in Europe.

"Thick snow and fog make it difficult for planes to move around," Krakow airport duty officer Lech Kawik told Reuters.