15,000 drivers stranded in snow-hit French Alps
Print Edition
HEAVY snowfall in the French Alps left some 15,000 drivers stranded overnight Saturday, and prompting officials to open emergency shelters.
The snow and ice hit as a rush of holidaymakers were heading to and leaving from ski resorts in the Savoie region in southeastern France, where authorities set up shelters in at least 12 towns.
The snow, freezing rain and icy conditions caused the death of a 27-year-old man whose car slid into a ravine in the Belledonne mountain range.
France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve in a statement urged drivers “to exercise the utmost caution” and asked those who could delay their trips to do so.
The country declared an orange weather alert — one step under the maximum red alert — in 19 regional departments.
One driver stuck in his car on a freeway in the Alps with four passengers, Kevin Clavel, said: “To go 130 kilometers it’s taken us 10 hours.”
France’s meteorological services expected more snowfall and “significant re-freezing” overnight and warned of slippery roads.
Elsewhere in France, it was wind and not snow that wrought havoc for holiday travellers.
Storms packing gusts of up to 160 kilometers per hour forced the temporary closure of France’s port of Calais on the English Channel and the suspension of car ferries to and from Britain.
A few kilometers outside Calais, thousands of illegal migrants living in makeshift camps struggled through a second night of freezing temperatures.
“The conditions outside are hellish in the ‘jungles’,” said David Lacour, the director of Solid’R, which is running a care centre to help migrants survive the cold.
“The storm blew away a lot of tents — some now have nothing.”
Mattresses line the floor of the old warehouse, once used to store flowers now filled with groups of migrants, some playing cards, some sleeping, some trying to dry their soaked shoes and socks after walking for over an hour to get here.
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