BERLIN, Dec 22: Bavaria’s worst-ever traffic jam forced at least 60,000 Germans to spend the first night of the Christmas holidays trapped in their cars, as snow and ice brought chaos to the country’s roads.

A 150 kms jam on the main north-south 9 motorway on Friday night was described by a police spokesman in Bavaria, southern Germany, as “certainly the worst we have ever seen”.

People were trapped in their cars for up to 14 hours as wind blew snow into drifts up to 1.2 metres (four feet) deep, a Bavarian Interior Ministry statement said.

The police spokesman said media reports that 100,000 were affected were credible.

In Switzerland, heavy snow forced about 40 scheduled flights to and from Zurich to be cancelled on Saturday, an airport spokesman said, forcing many travellers to take the three-hour rail trip from Zurich to Geneva.—Reuters