Britain getting back to normal

LONDON (AP):

WEATHER-WRACKED Christmas travel eased in Britain on Thursday after days of snow-related delays, with most services running normally at Heathrow Airport and on cross-Channel Eurostar trains. Across the Irish Sea, heavy snow shut Dublin Airport for several hours.

The Irish airport suspended flights in the morning because heavy snow made the runway unsafe, but reopened in the afternoon. Ireland has been hit by unusually heavy snow and frigid temperatures in recent days, causing widespread delays.

Clean-up efforts in London were aided by a slight rise in temperature that melted much of the ice. Heathrow Airport said both runways were open and about 90 per cent of flights were operating.

Heathrow's Spanish owner, BAA, announced an external inquiry into the airport's handling of the heavy snowfall which left hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded in the run-up to Christmas. BAA's chief executive, Colin Matthews, said a panel of experts will examine what went wrong and make recommendations to the company.

Eurostar also reported "near normal" service on its trains linking England to France and Belgium. The long lines of the past few days disappeared from the Eurostar hub at St Pancras Station in London, where staff handed out coffee and croissants to relieved travellers.

But motoring groups warned that millions of drivers are expected to make Christmas holiday journeys over the next two days, snarling roads across Britain.

Shortages of salt

French authorities also expressed concern over possible shortages of salt for roads and de-icing fluid for airplanes over the holiday weekend.

"On salt stocks, it's tense," said Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. France's famed high-speed trains will chug along more slowly Friday and over the weekend in the east and southeast because of forecast snow, the SNCF rail authority said.

While most of Western Europe thawed slightly, fresh snowfall in France prompted the closure of a border crossing to Belgium and a section of the main highway linking Paris to the Champagne region and points farther east. The civil aviation authority asked Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport to cancel 20 percent of flights because of snow.

Bitter cold was causing problems in Scandinavia, where a night storm dumped up to six inches (15 centimetres) of snow across Denmark and hampered road, rail, and air traffic. Worst hit was the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm, where police urged people to stay indoors. In the south, the Danish army mobilised armoured personnel carriers to help ambulances and other emergency vehicles get through the snow.

In Sweden, trains came to a halt in southern regions as icy winter winds swept snow over the country.

Johan Ingero, a spokesman for train operator SJ, said thousands of passengers were affected by the delays and standstills on the busiest day of the year.

Dozens of people were evacuated from a commuter train in southern Sweden after it got stuck in a pile of snow.

Police in England found the body of a 21-year-old student who disappeared in freezing conditions after a night out on Saturday with friends. Duncan Gibbon's body was found on an embankment in the northern city of Newcastle.