Heavy snowfall strands villages in Balkans

Blizzards blocked roads, stranded villages and disrupted power supplies in the Balkans on Tuesday, the area’s fourth straight day of tough winter weather.

About a meter (3 feet) of snow fell overnight in northern Montenegro, blocking roads, while in southwestern Serbia, heavy snowfall blocked roads to more than a dozen villages.

The Balkan Region - Courtesy Wikipedia

In Serbia, road crews were still struggling to clear even the central squares of some cities. Hundreds of people were stranded in buses and cars, and authorities banned heavy trucks from the nation’s roads.

To the south in Kosovo, heavy snow blocked villages toward the border with Albania, where classes in local schools were suspended.

With its milder climate, Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, usually escapes tough winter weather, but snow is blanketing Podgorica, too, and closed its airport for much of the day Tuesday.

Some areas in Bosnia were left without electricity. And in neighboring Croatia, hospitals reported dozens of cases of broken limbs from falls on the ice and snow.

http://weather.yahoo.com/heavy-snow-keeps-balkans-deep-freeze-150608728.html

Thanks to Blair Macdonald and Thomas McHart for this link