The UK is in the grip of snow and ice with record low temperatures reached in the last few hours. And the main impact is on airports and transport. Added to this is the wave of strikes on the railways which makes it practically impossible to move to work. And this greatly complicates an already compromised situation after bad weather blocked the airports. More than 140 flights have been canceled today, with the airports of Stansted, Gatwick, Luton and London City among the most affected. And alongside the “Christmas” postcard photos of whitewashed London, there were serious inconveniences for those trying to move on the underground, which suffered delays and partial closures.
United Kingdom, roads blocked by snow, railways stopped due to staff strike: it’s chaos
While the Motorists’ Association warns that despite “the beautiful landscape” there is a nightmarish scenario: last night on the M25 and M11 motorways many people were stranded in their vehicles for several hours. While some motorists from Burwash, in East Sussex, have decided to abandon their cars and have taken refuge in a pub. As far as trains are concerned, the picture is not improving, there have been many cancellations of services particularly in the south-east of England. With the cold wave, the fears of blackouts that had already emerged in recent weeks are back stronger than ever. As a precaution, coal-fired power plants have been put on standby by National Grid, the public electricity grid operator, to avoid supply disruptions due to bad weather. But at least for now the recourse to this emergency measure has been avoided.
There are no flights from London, the airports are covered in snow: here is the situation on the runways
The British government has thus urgently convened the Cobra emergency committee in order to deal with the wave of new strikes arriving. Because in addition to transport, the protest of nurses and ambulance workers also explodes, risking causing paralysis in hospitals in the United Kingdom. The conservative executive led by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in other words, is grappling with a real emergency also in view of the Christmas holidays, as the BBC points out.
Meanwhile, the weather forecasts are not at all comforting and the frost wave will continue for several more days.