January 3, 2002	Thursday	Shawwal 18, 1422

WARSAW, Jan 2: The Slovak president was among thousands who fell victim to snow chaos on Wednesday as the worst blizzards in years paralysed much of central Europe, blocking roads and railways and cutting off towns and power supplies.

Snowdrifts piled up on trunk roads in southern Poland, stranding drivers heading north after New Year celebrations in mountain resorts such as Zakopane, where recent avalanches killed at least five people.

In the neighbouring Czech and Slovak republics the picture was similar as high winds built walls of snow up to two metres (yards) high as fast as aging snowplough fleets could clear them.

Slovak President Rudolf Schuster was slightly hurt when cars in his motorcade collided with crashed cars during a snowstorm in the west of the country.

“President Schuster had light injuries to his elbow and knee,” spokesman Jan Fule said, adding that Schuster was able to continue his schedule after a hospital checkup.

While drivers fumed over massive tailbacks — one heading towards Warsaw reached 20 km (12 miles) — schoolchildren were let off the first day of the new term in parts of Poland and the Czech Republic.

Temperatures were forecast to plunge to minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) overnight, with more heavy snowfalls and high winds set to undo the work of exhausted emergency crews.

DISASTER ZONE: Czech authorities declared a third of the country a disaster zone as army teams were sent in to help pull out stranded vehicles. The northern Krkonose mountains were worst hit, while several border crossings with Poland and Germany were cut off.

“This is the worst situation in 15 years,” Pavel Svab, spokesman for the Czech Road and Highway Authority, told Reuters. “Highways are passable, but only with great caution.”

Several roads in northern Slovakia were blocked, and a train to the ski resort of Stary Smokovec was stranded for hours before finally being freed by railway workers and soldiers.

Three people have died in the past two weeks in avalanches near central Slovak ski resorts, and one village had to be evacuated temporarily because of the danger of more avalanches.

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Marek Pol said the cabinet’s crisis sub-committee would meet on Wednesday night to discuss an emergency operation in which 4,000 snowploughs were mobilised in a vain effort to keep the nation’s roads open.

“There is continuing snowfall with very strong winds making the situation really dramatic,” said Janusz Sikora, duty officer at the southern division of Poland’s Public Roads Bureau.

Among Polish highways still blocked were the A4 between Wroclaw and the Czech border, highways 1 and 11 to Katowice and the main route between Krakow and Kielce.

Two trains were stranded earlier near the southern town of Wadowice, birthplace of Pope John Paul, and services out of Warsaw suffered lengthy delays. Gdansk airport in the north was closed by high winds, PAP news agency reported.

Many tourists remained stuck in Zakopane as the only route to the resort in the Tatra mountains seized up.

Hopes dwindled for two hikers missing there since last week, with the search effort delayed by the breakdown of a rescue helicopter. A second, lent by border guards, could not fly on New Year’s day because the pilot had the day off.—Reuters