Extreme Winter Brings Death and Chaos to Europe

(Dec. 22) -- Travel chaos hit much of Europe today as fresh snowstorms and widespread ice left hundreds stranded and roads blocked, with forecasts of more bad weather to come.

The devastating cold snap has also caused more than 80 deaths across the continent.

At least 42 people in Poland and 27 in Ukraine, most of them homeless, froze to death over the weekend, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported. Another 12 homeless people have died this month in France, according to Reuters UK.

In addition, 13 people died in road accidents in Austria, Finland and Germany, the BBC reported, as temperatures dropped well below zero. The cold weather is expected to continue for the rest of the week, and heavy snow warnings have been issued for today in many parts of England.

The Eurostar rail link under the English Channel resumed service to Paris from London this morning after service was suspended for three days following snowstorms in northern France. But with thousands of people holding tickets, it was expected to take several days to clear the backlog.

French Transport Minister Dominique de Bussereau called the situation "unacceptable," The Associated Press reported, and said a thorough investigation into its causes would be carried out. Alternative services were hit over the weekend when nearly half the flights out of Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports in Paris were canceled.

British Airways said most of its flights were operating again today after it canceled all domestic and European flights from London's Heathrow Airport on Monday. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, runways were cleared after heavy snowfalls caused major disruptions to flight patterns.

In a separate development, Spain's Development Ministry said it had withdrawn the flying license for the debt-stricken Air Comet, leaving thousands of Christmas travelers stranded at Madrid airport.

The airline, owned by the Spanish tourism and transportation company Grupo Marsans, operates daily flights to Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Peru. Most of its flights are in and out of the Spanish capital.

The disruptions, coming during the Christmas holiday season, have affected thousands of people's travel plans, and will no doubt affect the economies of many European countries, now slowly emerging from the global recession.

Road traffic in the U.K. was severely disrupted, with roads in the southeast gridlocked late Monday after many crashes in a heavy snowfall. The Automobile Association reported its busiest day for breakdowns in a decade on Monday, The Guardian reported, with about 16,000 breakdowns recorded by mid-afternoon, compared with a winter average of 10,000 a day.

Major roads on the continent were also blocked by similar snowstorms, with up to 20 inches falling in some regions.