Rare snow fall in Rome as Europe hit by icy ‘Beast from the East’

ROME: Rome woke to its first snowfall in six years on Monday as chilling winds from Siberia swept across Europe, bringing freezing temperatures that have claimed at least seven lives, disrupted travel and closed schools.

The “Beast from the East”, as Britain’s media have named it, is expected to bring cold air from Russia over the next few days that will make it feel even chillier than thermometers indicate.The toll from the icy weather has been mounting, with two people dying in Poland since Saturday, bringing the winter’s toll to 48 since November, according to the centre for national security.

A car transporting Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven careened off the E4 autoroute north of Stockholm on Monday during a blizzard, smashing into a guardrail though Lofven was unhurt, officials said.

In Sweden, the snowfall did cause about 20 flights to be cancelled at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport, primarily to European destinations. Three people in Lithuania have also died due to exposure over the past three days, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported, as weekend temperatures plunged to minus 24 degrees Celsius (minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit).

In France, where temperatures were forecast to drop to minus 10 C and feel as low as minus 18 C over the coming days, fears ran high for people living on the streets.In Britain, snow was falling in eastern England and was expected to spread.

In Belgium, a local mayor in a municipality of Brussels ordered homeless people to be forcibly detained if they refused to go to shelters. Snow has disrupted travel in the Netherlands, where the chill has been labelled “the Siberian bear” and where a low of minus 17 C is expected on Thursday.

Heavy snow closed numerous motorways across Croatia, including those leading to the Adriatic coast, which experienced rare snowfall that also interrupted ferry services between the islands.