Flights, trains were cancelled en masse in Germany’s Munich as heavy snowfall battered Bavaria on Sunday (Dec 3). At least 760 flights were cancelled at Munich Airport on Saturday (Dec 2), with all scheduled departures put on hold until at least 6 am Sunday.
Buses, trams and train services were also hit, stranding a huge number of travellers at Munich’s main railway station.
“I’ve been sitting here in this place since one o’clock in the morning,” one passenger was quoted as saying by Germany’s regional Süddeutsche Zeitung, while another said: “We just want to know if there’s still a chance of getting out of here.”
A football match scheduled to be played between Bayern Munich and Union Berlin on Saturday was also postponed with “safety risks and the traffic situation [making] cancellation” unavoidable, according to a statement by Bayern Munich.
Watch: Winter storm dumps snow across southern Germany
Police urged people not to travel in their cars unless it was absolutely necessary, while residents of some parts of southern Bavaria were told not to leave their homes at all.
Bavarian public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk on Saturday reported that the 44 centimetres of snow in Munich was the most snowfall ever recorded in December in the Bavarian state capital since records began in 1933.
Heavy snowfall also downed several trees in Bavaria, leaving “thousands of people” powerless across the state.
Some residents, however, were cheerier about the snowy atmosphere, with parents pulling their children along on sleds.
“Finally snow again. I think it’s great because it’s a bit quieter. It’s a nicer atmosphere overall,” Friedrich Zeller was quoted as saying by Reuters, as he walked through the snowy streets.
While Munich airport remained closed throughout Saturday, other airports in the region, including in the Swiss financial capital Zurich, also announced weather-related delays and cancellations.
In Austria and Switzerland, the new snowfall led officials to raise the alarm about the danger of avalanches.
(With inputs from agencies)
