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Disruption on Europe's roads continues

The situation on French roads has hardly improved after heavy snowfall yesterday. The forecast shows no improvements for the next day. Roads remain dangerously slippery. "On the A1, A2, A16 and A26 driving bans are in place and the A29 has just been added," says Jeroen Mostert of C. Vreugdenhil Transport, a Dutch transport company. "That means there is no alternate route around Paris. Cars left yesterday are stranded at Arras. Moreover there are still lorries stuck at Peronne and Senlis."



Another Dutch company, Mooy Logistics has a total of 28 lorries still stranded, says Transport Manager, Henk van Berkel. A few lorries, which were blocked yesterday have removed. These are already being unloaded or supplying customers in Paris, Brittany and in the direction Bordeaux and Toulouse. All lorries which left yesterday for Reims, Paris and western France are blocked in northern France.

The French road authorities have cleared roads as much as possible with snowploughs. Although there were still driving bans in place until 12:00pm today on some stretches of motorway, the motorway to Belgium was still closed this morning with a traffic jam of at least fifty miles.

In Germany, the regions Düsseldorf and Cologne warned of slippery roads due to the heavy snowfall. In the latter region, truck drivers were advised to look for the nearest parking place. Also in the state of Rhineland-Pfalz there are delays due to snow and in the Karlsruhe region there were warnings of ice.



Meanwhile in England part of the M20 motorway in Kent was closed due to the road closures on the continent.

The British authorities have implemented 'Operation Stack' - which sees lorries park up on the motorway while waiting to get into the Port of Dover - reports BBC news.

Snow and ice in France and Belgium has caused delays to freight and passenger services through the Channel Tunnel.

A Port of Dover spokesman said: "We're loading lorries on as fast as we can."

Operation Stack closed the M20 southbound between junction eight (Leeds Castle) and junction nine (Ashford north).

Non-commercial traffic is being diverted on to the A20 and lorries are being sent back on to the motorway to be parked.

Eurotunnel is reporting delays of about 30 minutes for freight services at Folkestone, due to the volume of traffic, while Eurostar said weather conditions in northern France and Belgium were leading to disruption on cross-channel high speed lines.