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Brutal European winter kills at least 80
 The death toll from winter storms across Europe rose to at least 80 on Monday as transport chaos spread amid mounting anger over the failure of Eurostar high-speed trains.With tens of thousands stranded by the cancellation of London-to-Paris trains and hundreds of flights across the continent, new accidents and mass power cuts added to the big freeze tumult. A car veered off an icy road knocking concrete onto rails that derailed a Paris commuter train, injuring 36 people, police said. Another train in the Croatian capital Zagreb hit a buffer injuring 52 people. Croatian investigators blamed the minus 17 degrees Celsius temperatures for the brake failure, national television reported. Temperatures as low as minus 33.6 degrees Celsius have been recorded in Bavaria. In Poland, authorities said 42 people, many of them homeless, had died of cold over three days after temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Ukraine reported 27 deaths
France has reported at least two deaths of homeless people. The national power company cut electricity to two million people on Monday saying it was needed to avoid an even bigger blackout amid surging demand. The breakdown of the Eurostar service under the Channel, linking London with Paris and Brussels, has symbolised Europe's suffering. Along with the nightmare of more than 2,000 people stuck in the tunnel when five trains broke down Friday, tens of thousands more people have missed trains cancelled since then. Posted by: Fred 2009-12-22 |
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