Snow causes further travel chaos

Many people slept on the floor at Heathrow Airport overnight.
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Heavy snow has caused misery for Christmas travellers across England, with passengers stranded at airports and drivers stuck on roads.

No flights are arriving at Heathrow Airport and only seven were due to leave, while 50 flights have been cancelled at Gatwick.

There are delays and cancellations at many other airports.

Many drivers on the A34 in Oxfordshire were stuck in cars overnight and faced queues of up to eight hours on Sunday.

More than 80 cars were abandoned and several jack-knifed lorries blocked the road.

A tanker carrying liquid petroleum gas has overturned on the M25 in Kent, causing police to close the motorway in both directions between junctions five and six.

Cherwell Valley service station on the M40 in Oxfordshire is reported to have run out of fuel.

The Met Office is warning of icy roads across most of England on Sunday.

Heavy snow is predicted for Yorkshire and Humber, the North East and London and the South East.

Many sporting fixtures have been called off, including three Premier League games at Blackpool, Chelsea and West Bromwich.

Temperatures in Shawbury, Shropshire, hit -20C overnight and were set to range between -1C and -15C across England on Sunday.

In Birmingham, the council said roads had been gritted but temperatures as low as -9C were “hampering the effectiveness” of the salt.

A city council spokesman said: “We would ask businesses and other partners to do what they safely can to help clear the snow.”

There are delays and cancellations at Stansted, Luton, Exeter, London City, Birmingham, Bristol and Southampton airports.

Bournemouth Airport closed on Saturday but has since reopened.

Ryanair has cancelled more than 80 flights to or from UK airports, mainly in the London area.

Hundreds of thousands of Britons were due to fly this weekend, according to travel association Abta, but many had their plans disrupted.

Thousands were stranded at Heathrow Airport overnight and hundreds more at Gatwick.

Many were forced to sleep on the floor of the terminals.

Sharon Bell, who is trying to fly from Gatwick to India, said: “We’ve had a 25-hour delay.

“We did have to stay in the airport last night. We were sleeping in check-in. They offered to provide blankets and mattresses but those never materialised.

“So we’ve literally sat and laid on the check-in floor all night. I have my parents with me who are in their 60s and they’ve been expected to do the same thing.”

On the trains, First Great Western , First Capital Connect and South West Trains have some changes to schedules due to the weather.

Southern and Southeastern are running normal Sunday services, although there may be some cancellations.

There are also delays of up to an hour on the Eurostar.

The heavy snow has also affected Christmas shopping. Brent Cross shopping centre in north London was closed on Saturday but reopened on Sunday.

Tom Nathan, the centre’s general manager, said staff had been working through the night to clear the snow.

“It’s obviously going to be slippy and we ask customers to be terribly careful,” he said.

“We’ll direct people to the sheltered areas first of all for parking. But we’re determined to get open and we’ve had people working really hard for it.”

In Devon, Dartmoor Zoo has closed its doors to visitors. Staff are trying to get to the attraction to ensure the animals are looked after.

In Somerset, the number of people admitted to Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton with broken bones doubled because of the icy weather.

There were 45-50 weather-related fractures in two days compared to the usual figure of about 20, the hospital said.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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