Snow grounds hundreds of flights in Britain

LONDON, United Kingdom – Snow swept across Britain on Friday, forcing airports to cancel hundreds of flights and more than 3,000 schools to close.

London’s Heathrow Airport, one of the busiest in the world, cancelled 365 flights, a mixture of short and long-haul flights.

It took 24 vehicles to clear the two runways, a Heathrow spokeswoman said.

She added the west London hub had a “very organised snow plan” since heavy snow and ice caused days of chaos at the airport in the run-up to Christmas 2010.

Eurostar cancelled four journeys between London and Brussels on Friday and said other services were running with slight delays due to speed restrictions in the bad weather.

Birmingham Airport in central England and Southampton Airport in the southeast were closed all day, while snow also forced temporary closures at airports at Cardiff in Wales, Bristol in southwest England and the channel island of Jersey.

Over 3,000 schools were shut across Britain, and the bad weather caused gridlock on the roads and widespread disruption on the rail network.

Britain’s weather agency, the Met Office, issued a rare “red warning” for parts of south Wales, where some areas were expecting up to 30 centimetres (11 inches) of snow. – Rappler.com