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Athens (AFP) March 8, 2011 Gale-force winds and heavy snowfall in parts of Greece on Tuesday left many areas without electricity and forced authorities to shut down schools in several districts, officials said. Trees uprooted by winds racing over 75 kilometres (45 miles) an hour cut power cables, while stormy seas severed maritime services to Greece's numerous islands, the merchant marine ministry said. The situation was most severe in the Sporades island group off central Greece where residents were left without electricity for hours. "A high-voltage pylon has collapsed on the mainland near the mountain of Pelion," a spokesman for the Public Power Corporation told state television. "Our first priority is to get generators to restore power to the nearby islands of Skopelos, Alonissos and Skiathos, but this is heavy machinery and the operation could take till nightfall," he added. A number of northern Athens districts were also facing rolling power shortages, the PPC said. Local authorities shut down dozens of schools mainly in the north of the capital and in the southern Peloponnese peninsula, where a number of mountain villages were cut off. "We have decided to keep schools closed as a precaution," George Patoulis, mayor of the northern district of Maroussi, told Flash Radio. The unseasonally high snowfall snarled traffic for hours late on Monday on Greece's chief highway, with the transport ministry accusing the route's private operators of poor emergency planning despite weather warnings.
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Slovakia's winter death-toll hits 122, authorities sayBratislava (AFP) March 7, 2011 The cold weather has claimed 122 lives this winter in Slovakia, local health authorities said, but were unable to confirm the number of homeless victims. "From November 1 to February 28, there have been 122 autopsies that showed low temperature as the main cause of death," Radoslava Miklasova from the Slovak Healthcare Authority told AFP. She could not specify the number of homeless deat ... read more |
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