global warming...can you believe it ?

Frigid weather has left more people dead and injured throughout Europe as snow sweeping south paralysed transport in France, Switzerland and Italy and caused fatal accidents in Poland and Spain.

In Poland, at least 20 people died and more than 100 were injured when the snow-covered roof of an exposition hall near the southern industrial Polish city of Katowice collapsed, officials said.

Temperatures plunged to minus 35 degrees Celsius in some parts of Poland during the last week.

Eight people froze to death late on Friday, bringing the toll this winter to 199, police said.

In Romania, where the mercury was forecast to drop to minus 25 degrees Celsius over the weekend, five more people died.

Some 55 Romanians have perished of cold this winter.

Snow warnings were issued across four-fifths of France, and the Riviera along the Mediterranean coast was battered with wind gusts up to 100 kilometres an hour.

A homeless man in France died of a heart attack and the airport in the second largest city, Lyon, was paralysed by snow on Friday night.

Transport disruptions

Up to 1,200 people were forced to spend the night huddling under blankets in the airport when three quarters of incoming and out coming flights were cancelled.

On Saturday, snow forced the airport at Toulouse to shut down for two hours and flights were also called off at the western French airports Rennes, Poitiers and Nantes.

Train and bus service were also disrupted in the region.

Heavy snow also disrupted travel on motorways especially in central France, forcing some roads to be closed.

Rail traffic was hampered in southern France, Switzerland and northern Italy, cutting some Alpine villages off altogether.

Southern Switzerland was buried under a metre of snow after the heaviest falls in 20 years, the meteorological office reported

In eastern Spain a bus overturned in a blizzard, killing five people and injuring 30, police said.

More severe snow was forecast for the weekend in the Valencia region where the bus accident happened.

Gas shortage

Georgians, meanwhile, endured a seventh day without heating due to an explosion that severed gas supplies from neighbouring Russia.

But relief may be on the way.

Work on a damaged gas pipeline between Russia and Georgia has been wound up allowing supplies to resume on Sunday, the Kavkaztransgaz company, a subsidiary of Russian giant Gazprom, said Saturday.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging the gas pipeline.

On Friday he announced that Tbilisi had struck a deal with Iran to provide natural gas from the start of next week.

Turkey expressed concern late on Friday about possible energy shortages after a reduction in natural gas supplies from Iran and Russia.

-AFP

Dave R.