photo creditSEOUL: Heavy snow grounded dozens of planes at major airports in South Korea on Monday and caused havoc in the centre of the country, including the capital Seoul, officials said.
The weather office said it issued a heavy snow alert for Seoul and surrounding areas, where just over 17 centimetres (almost seven inches) of snow fell in just four hours.
Gimpo airport in Seoul, a hub for South Korea's domestic flights, was forced to cancel a total of 90 outgoing and inbound flights because of the snowfall, airport officials said.
Incheon airport, the main international airport west of Seoul, also reported four cancellations and 40 delayed flights, they said.
The snow also disrupted traffic on the streets of Seoul and other cities and roads and highways elsewhere in the country.
Some ministers were late for a cabinet meeting, which was forced to begin later than scheduled because of traffic chaos. Snow was expected to stop falling later in the day.
The Seoul city government said it was mobilising 3,500 civil servants and 1,200 vehicles to remove snow from all major roads and streets.
- AFP/so
LONDON: Some 60 revellers were forced to drink beer and play cards for three days after they became stranded in a British pub cut off by snowstorms on New Year's Eve.
The guests had booked in to celebrate the new year at the Tan Hill Inn, England's highest pub, standing 1,700 feet (518 metres) above sea level, in the northern Yorkshire Dales.
But the heavy, relentless snowstorms that have swept through parts of Britain trapped them inside, unable to get to their cars and leaving the roads home impassable.
"There was a lovely, community atmosphere despite the fact nobody could get home," said landlord Tracy Daly. "I suppose there are worse places to be snowed in than a pub."
A gritter and snowplough finally broke through the seven-foot snow drifts that had sealed off the hotel on Sunday, ending the revelry, dubbed Britain's longest-running New Year's Eve party by newspapers on Monday.
Daly, 45, said she, her husband and two staff had kept the guests entertained and fed, and offered rooms for a knockdown price of 10 pounds (11 euros, 16 dollars), per night.
"We had the rule that the bar could only open at 5pm, the guests were all very well behaved though," she said.
The landlady added: "The guests were lovely, we were pretty under-staffed and they kept giving us breaks so we didn't get too tired."
Nathan Martin, 26, one of a group from Leeds University cross-country club stuck in the pub, described the experience in the Guardian newspaper as the "ultimate lock in".
- AFP/so
BEIJING: Schools were shut down, flights delayed and traffic snarled in Beijing on Monday following two days of heavy snow in north China, with even more frigid weather forecast.
Up to 30 centimetres (12 inches) of snow fell in the capital and nearby Tianjin on Saturday and Sunday, the Central Meteorological Administration reported – the biggest snowfall in January in the region in more than 50 years.
Although snow was not forecast in the capital in the coming days, snowstorms were expected in northeast China and eastern Shandong province on Monday as people returned to work following the New Year holiday, the administration said.
A Siberian cold front meanwhile could bring historic low temperatures of between minus 20 and minus 32 degrees Celsius (minus four and -26 Fahrenheit) to Hebei province and Inner Mongolia on Tuesday and Wednesday, it said.
Temperatures in Beijing were expected to drop to minus 16 degrees Celsius on Monday, the coldest in the capital in decades, the China Daily reported.
In China's coldest region of Heilongjiang province, the mercury has already plummeted to minus 36 Celsius, the paper said.
More than 3,500 schools in Beijing and Tianjin were forced to shut their doors on Monday, giving more than 2.2 million students an extra day of New Year's holiday, state media reported.
At Beijing's international airport – where nearly 1,200 flights were cancelled or delayed on Sunday – workers had cleared the runways and the situation was returning to normal, an airport spokesman told AFP.
More than 100 flights on Monday were delayed and two dozen cancelled as of 9:00 am (0100 GMT), the spokesman said, adding that workers needed to de-ice the snow-covered planes that were unable to take off over the weekend.
Up to 30 highways in Beijing and the surrounding regions were still closed to traffic or only partially opened on Monday, the China News Service reported.
Inner city roads in the capital remained icy and covered with snow on Monday, but traffic was flowing, albeit at a slow pace. The city has mobilised 300,000 people to clear the snow, the China Daily reported.
The nation's rail network was operating normally, but long-distance bus services in north China were disrupted, the paper said.
The frigid air from the north was also expected to send temperatures plummeting below the freezing mark in much of central China, where heavy fog could cause problems for air and road travellers, the weather bureau said.
- AFP/so
PARIS: A cold snap across Europe killed 13 people in Poland over the New Year as avalanches and skiing accidents left at least 10 others dead in the Alps, police and rescuers said on Monday.
As temperatures plunged to minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 Fahrenheit) in Poland at the start of the year, the number of cold-related deaths rose to 122 so far this winter, police said.
Most victims were homeless men aged 35 to 50 who died of hypothermia while drunk, they said.
In the Swiss Alps avalanches killed at least five people with three others missing, emergency services and police said.
The first avalanche hit on Sunday in the central Bernese Alps, killing one skier. Emergency services were searching survivors from another avalanche that struck half an hour later.
Eight helicopters carrying doctors, rescuers and avalanche dogs were despatched to the disaster site and pulled out eight people alive.
Some of the survivors were in a critical condition and three died later in a hospital, including a doctor who had arrived to treat people following the first avalanche.
Rescuers also found the body of a hiker buried in the snow while three other people - two Swiss and a German - were reported missing, police said in a statement.
Emergency services were unable to restart the search on Monday amid the difficult weather conditions, said Theo Maurer of Switzerland's mountain rescue services.
In western Switzerland's canton of Valais, a mountain guide and his client were hit by an avalanche on Sunday, officials said.
The guide was able to get out alive but his client died, with the body found buried under 80 centimetres of snow.
Steady snowfall overnight and all day on Monday led to several road accidents and caused rare delays in the Swiss public transport system.
A 32-year-old German tourist was killed in eastern Switzerland's Ofen mountain pass, after her motor home collided head-on with a car that skidded on black ice, police said.
Several accidents were also reported on the busy motorway linking the cities of Lausanne and Geneva.
A metro line in Lausanne was disrupted for two hours on Monday while in Geneva, public buses were running with delays.
In western Austria rescue officials said they found the bodies of two German skiers, aged 18 and 19, who had fallen into a ravine.
Another avalanche hit mountains on France's border with Italy on Friday, killing three people, French police said.
Western Europe is shivering through one of its coldest winters in decades with heavy snowfalls causing serious disruption to road, rail and air traffic over the Christmas and New Year holiday periods.
In southern France a number of high-speed trains were delayed for up to two and a half hours near Cavaillon and in the Lyon region, state railway operator SNCF said after France's second city was blanketed by 10 centimetres of snow.
At Lyon's Saint-Exupery airport 13 flights were cancelled.
The nearby Alpine city of Grenoble recorded 20 centimetres of snow, a figure unseen since November 2005, causing serious disruptions on roads.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand was in hospital overnight on Sunday after skidding on black ice with his scooter, the ministry said, but he was expected to resume his work later Monday.
In Britain, some 60 revellers were stranded for three days at the Tan Hill Inn, England's highest pub, standing 518 metres above sea level, in the northern Yorkshire Dales after snowstorms on New Year's Eve.
A snowplough on Sunday finally broke through the more than two-metre snow drifts, ending the revelry, dubbed Britain's longest-running New Year's Eve party by newspapers on Monday. - AFP/de
BEIJING: Heavy snow has brought more travel chaos to north China, stranding thousands of truckers for two days on a Beijing highway and 1,400 rail passengers in Inner Mongolia, state media said on Tuesday.
The snow that blanketed the region at the weekend has ended in Beijing, but the national weather centre said the mercury dipped on Tuesday to minus 15.6 degrees Celsius (four Fahrenheit) – the coldest temperature in more than two decades.
The freezing weather was expected to continue until Thursday for the Chinese capital, nearby Tianjin and Inner Mongolia, with temperatures forecast to fall as low as minus 32 degrees Celsius, it said on its website.
On the outskirts of Beijing, truck drivers were forced to sleep in their vehicles for two nights on a highway when snow made the road impassable, causing a 20-kilometre (12-mile) back-up, the Beijing News reported.
The newspaper, citing transit police, said the highway would only be cleared on Tuesday – after two chilly nights for the drivers, some of whom said they were afraid to sleep for fear of dying of exposure.
Others said they were prepared for the traffic mess.
"We brought food as we expected the jam," said one trucker, who had two cases of instant noodle and one thermos of water on board.
The heavy snow and freezing temperatures have led to hundreds of flight cancellations and delays in Beijing, shuttered schools on Monday and snarled traffic throughout the capital.
In Inner Mongolia, a train hit a wall of snow more than two metres (6.5 feet) high on Sunday, leaving 1,400 travellers in the dark and without heating overnight before they could be evacuated, the China Daily reported Tuesday.
"Though snow stopped yesterday, the temperature was minus 28 Celsius, freezing the doors," the paper quoted Zhang Jianwen, a police officer involved in the rescue effort, as saying.
Nearly 2,000 people including police and local farmers were mobilised to dig out the train, which was heading from the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang province to Baotou in Inner Mongolia, the report said.
Central China was now under a snowstorm warning until Wednesday, stretching from Henan to Hunan provinces, the national weather bureau said on its website.
- AFP/so
it is hereby announced that this blogger will try to the best of her
abilities to stay away from the evil evil vice that is internet, and thus will
refrain from blogging. this move will be in effect from 3...2..1..NOW. till she
decideds to succumb to the evil claws of the net. or otherwise, she promises to
be back after the advanced level examinations are over. at least according to
her definitions, thanks to the 13-day break in between.
she kindly requests for you to not miss her and not to remove this link and is in deep remorse if this inactivity shall cause you any emotional trauma.
nuffnang, please do not delete this blog from your list of sacred blogs, even though it is true that it is not churning in any moolah for you.
thank you for your attention, and have a nice day.
erm yeah it says 1.3 megapixel no kidding.
Good morning school, I am Stephanie from the JJ Civil Defence Club. asst admin head, to say or not to say? This year, CDC was awarded the National Community Safety and Security Programme (CSSP) award by the Ministry of Home Affairs. This marks the 5th consecutive year our club has received this award.
Named “Going into Community”, this award is attributed to the dedication and hard work of all the members of Civil Defence Club.
Our teacher in charge Mr. Lee Hee Fock would like to thank all teachers and members of the Civil Defence Club for their tremendous contributions to the community. This award belongs to all of you. nan hua memories anyone?
Now I am honored to call upon our Vice Principal, Mr. Chua to present the award to the president of the Civil Defence Club, Melissa Teh. Mr Chua, please.
award from mr lee to mr chua then from mr chua to mel, take photo and...
Thank you Mr Chua.
