Up to 50 kilometers long: Traffic jam madness due to winter chaos in Germany

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On Thursday, highway 61 between Kruft and Emmelshausen west of Koblenz was severely affected; according to the police in Koblenz, traffic was backed up for 50 kilometers towards the south. Officials spoke of “chaotic traffic conditions”. Those who remained needed to be cared for and cared for. A so-called “supply situation” has been created.

According to police in Koblenz, traffic on Motorway 3 in the area of ​​Bad Honnef and Neustadt in Rhineland-Palatinate came to a standstill on Wednesday evening due to trucks that broke down and stood sideways, resulting in an 18 kilometer long traffic jam. jam. Traffic did not start again until 3:30 am.

Start-up aid, fuel and hot drinks

Highways 4, 5 and 7 near Bad Hersfeld in Hesse were also severely affected. Trucks got stuck on slopes overnight, police in Fulda said. There was a backlog of 30 kilometers on the A7, which was not expected to disappear until Thursday.

According to officials, helpers from the fire brigade, the technical aid organization and the Red Cross were carrying out large-scale operations on the affected highway sections in Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. They provide emergency assistance to broken down trucks or provide stranded drivers with fuel and hot drinks.

Classes were canceled at all schools

Police in Fulda said emergency services from the fire brigade and the Red Cross were “sometimes on foot in traffic jams” to provide care and support to people in stuck vehicles. There were also two pregnant women in the thirty kilometer long traffic jam on the A7, who were escorted out by the emergency services via an emergency lane.

Due to the tense weather conditions, face-to-face education was canceled at all schools in large parts of South North Rhine-Westphalia on Thursday. According to the responsible district authorities, Cologne and Bonn were affected, as well as several districts from the region around Aachen in the west of the state to the Hochsauerland district in the southeast. No buses ran in Bonn on Thursday due to the risk of slippery roads.

Severe weather warnings have been withdrawn

Since Wednesday, central and southern Germany have been in the area of ​​a pronounced air mass boundary, where there has been enormous rainfall in the form of sleet and snow. According to the German Weather Service (DWD), freezing rain was also expected in a narrow strip from Saarland to northern Bavaria on Thursday, with snowfall of up to 15 centimeters in places in the center and increasingly in the south of the country.

However, the weather service canceled all remaining severe weather warnings on Thursday. The icy situation in the center should therefore decrease and snowfall should retreat further south towards the Alps until Friday evening. Friday should remain largely precipitation-free, with only a few snow showers expected in northern Germany.

“Numerous flight cancellations”

At Frankfurt Airport, where all takeoffs were temporarily halted on Wednesday due to freezing rain, massive disruptions continued on Thursday. The operator said there had been “significant disruptions to operations and numerous flight cancellations”. Passengers were asked to contact their airline before departure.

In many places, police continued to report winter road conditions and accidents, especially in Rhineland-Palatinate. About 80 accidents had already been counted in the Koblenz police station by Thursday evening, and about 40 in the Kaiserslautern police station since Wednesday evening.

Many accidents resulted in plate damage or minor injuries, but there were also more serious incidents. Six people were injured, some seriously, in a chain reaction accident on the A44 in North Rhine-Westphalia. There, between Geseke and Büren, a car skidded on a partially snow-covered road, and several other cars and two trucks drove onto the accident scene. A vehicle was pushed under a truck. (AFP)

Source: Blick