2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 15:44
Broken trucks, traffic jams on the motorways, canceled flights, panic on the train: winter paralyzed traffic. North Rhine-Westphalia temporarily imposed a driving ban for trucks over 7.5 tons. Hundreds of train drivers were stuck in Schleswig-Holstein.
Abundant snow and icy roads have stopped trucks in particular and caused miles of traffic jams on the highways. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the authorities ordered a nationwide driving ban for trucks over 7.5 tons on Thursday evening, which was only lifted after nine hours. The traffic had previously come to a standstill. Numerous trucks got stuck or stood sideways. Spreaders and clearing vehicles often couldn't get through.
Panic between Hamburg and Lübeck
Motorists in large parts of Germany also had to have strong nerves: They were stuck in a snow jam for hours. Patience was also required from passengers. Storm depression "Petra" moved over Germany, the German weather service lifted all severe weather warnings on Friday. In Bavaria, three people died in car accidents on slippery roads on Thursday evening. In Leipzig, a driver crashed into a truck standing sideways and died.
Panic broke out among the passengers of a train between Hamburg and Lübeck. The regional express with around 400 passengers got stuck in the dark without electricity on the open route. A spokesman for the railway confirmed on Friday a corresponding NDR report on the incident on Thursday between 4:33 p.m. and 8:33 p.m. Because of the backlog, 38 trains were affected by the power outage on the Hamburg Lübeck route. Thousands were stuck at train stations in the cold. Traffic is now back to normal.
Numerous motorways closed
Many flight plans also got mixed up: While on Thursday 220 of around 1,400 flights were canceled, around 100 flights were canceled on Friday, according to the Frankfurt airport operator - the majority of them machines that could not come due to problems elsewhere. At Stuttgart Airport alone, 20 flights were canceled by morning, said a spokeswoman. At Düsseldorf Airport, 20 flights were also canceled on Friday. On Thursday evening, Germany's third largest airport had to be closed for two hours because of the heavy snowfall.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the A1 was particularly affected, said the state control center. It was blocked because of broken down trucks between Volmarstein and Gevelsberg and near Wuppertal. The A3 at Kreuz Breitscheid was also completely blocked by the police. The vehicles jammed there on Friday morning for a length of ten kilometers. On the A3 between Leverkusen and Oberhausen at times nothing went on for 40 kilometers. Technical aid and emergency services provided the people with blankets and hot tea.
Hoax causes further chaos
In Luxembourg, Belgium and parts of France, too, the authorities had imposed a driving ban on trucks over 7.5 tonnes, as the Trier police headquarters announced. 200 to 300 truck drivers then spent the night of Friday on the hard shoulder of Autobahn 64 near Trier. A false report on the radio, according to which the route was opened again, caused further chaos in the morning. Because in Luxembourg there was initially only free travel again for truck traffic in the direction of Germany.
The A5 near Ettlingen (Baden-Württemberg) was completely blocked for several hours after an accident involving three trucks and a car. A Romanian articulated lorry slipped into the guardrail on the A4 and tore open the tank, 300 liters of diesel leaked. On Friday morning, traffic flowed again on the A7 from Kassel to Würzburg. The previous evening it had looked different: In Hesse, even scattering services were broken down on the autobahn. In Frankfurt, so many people fell asleep in their cars in a traffic jam that the police had to wake them up so that they could continue.
Traffic jams 30 to 40 kilometers long
There were also several accidents with trucks in frost and snow in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The A24 Hamburg-Berlin near Neustadt-Glewe and A20 Lübeck-Stettin in front of Kröpelin were then blocked, as the motorway police announced. The A 24 is even closed in both directions because a truck also crashed in Northern Brandenburg and blocked the lane to Hamburg.
Traffic jams and black ice also caused problems in Saxony-Anhalt. On the A2 in the direction of Hanover, a broken down heavy-duty transporter caused traffic jams for kilometers up to the Lower Saxony state border. "30 to 40 kilometers long queues were not uncommon," said a police spokesman in Magdeburg.
Spreading services take a break in Bremen
In Schleswig-Holstein there were two accidents on the A7 on Thursday evening, which caused traffic jams for kilometers. According to the police in Kiel, the A7 was closed until the early hours of the morning due to rescue work. A truck had overturned and blocked all lanes in the direction of Hamburg. In Bremen, the motorways were particularly slippery because the gritting services had taken a break in the late evening.
In schools in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, classes were canceled on Friday. In some districts in Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, too, the children were able to stay at home, just like thousands of students in East Thuringia. (dpa)
