WARSAW, Jan 27: Europe shivered in a severe cold snap on Thursday as temperatures hovered below freezing across much of the continent, forcing train and plane delays and ratcheting up electricity consumption to record levels.

In a ceremony marking the liberation 60 years ago of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Poland, world leaders stood in biting cold and softly falling snow pleading for the horrors of the Holocaust never to be forgotten.

Snow and sub-zero temperatures prevented new Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who attended the Auschwitz ceremony, from flying to Brussels to introduce himself to European Union members. And the arrival in Poland of Russian President Vladimir Putin was delayed for nearly 20 hours due to bad weather.

Eastern and central Europe bore the brunt of the wintry weather, with snow and high winds buffeting Bosnia, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Poland as temperatures hovered around minus eight degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) in many areas.

In Romania, the pilot and co-pilot of a Hungarian mail plane were killed when the aircraft came down in heavy snow near the north eastern Romanian town of Iasi. Authorities had been weighing whether to shut the airport when the plane crashed on approach.

Road traffic all but stopped in central Croatia as snow depths reached 1.20 metres, breaking a record dating to 1954. Wind gusts in Croatia hit 180kms per hour in some areas, as authorities shut down parts of the main north-south national highway to truck traffic.

In the Czech Republic, snow continued to fall, further aggravating already poor travel conditions, with the mercury dropping to between minus five and minus 15 Celsius.

Power cuts hit several communities where snow of up to two metres was recorded. In the far south of Spain overnight snow shut down the airports of Granada and in the enclave of Melilla in north Africa. Several flights from Madrid to northern Spain were delayed. -AFP