Snow warnings continue amid disruption across France
Four departments in France are on orange avalanche alert this morning (January 23), and 25 others remain on orange alert for snow and ice, as roads, trains and school buses face disruption.
Météo France avalanche warnings are in force for the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haute-Garonne, and the Ariège.
The full list of departments on snow and ice alert is:
Aisne, Ardennes, Aube, Cher, Côte-d'Or, Eure-et-Loir, Haute-Garonne, Loir-et-Cher, Loiret, Marne, Nièvre, Nord, Oise, Pas-de-Calais, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Hautes-Pyrénées, Saône-et-Loire, Paris and surroundings, Seine-Maritime, Seine-et-Marne, Yvelines, Somme, Yonne, Essonne and Val-d'Oise.
The continued warnings for further snowfall come amid news that an 11-year-old boy was seriously injured in the Cher. A bus skidded on some ice and accidentally drove onto a pavement, trapping the boy against a wall.
He was taken to hospital by ambulance, and is said to be in a critical but not life-threatening condition.
The weather also caused transport disruption yesterday, including the closure of the RN 118 road in Ile-de-France twice: once at 11h and again at 22h. Speed limits of 80 kph were also in place, with heavy good vehicles prohibited from all major roads towards the capital.
Drivers were warned to take precautions, as accidents were notably reported in Nord, Pas-de-Calais, and in the Drôme.
Buses in the Paris region were also disrupted.
On the trams, RER and métro trains, operating company RATP announced that carriages would drive on the lines all night, to keep the trains warm and to limit the tracks from becoming too snowed-in.
National train company SNCF said that it had its “pre-alert” plan in place, including ensuring stocks of de-icer, salt, food and snow-plough trains were ready to go.
SNCF said it had enacted “go slow” precautions across much of the affected network. So far, some trains in Paris have been slightly delayed, while yesterday, the Lille-Flandres train station was operating with a 30-minute delay by late-morning.
School buses remain suspended in Ardennes, Yonne, Meuse, Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Aisne and Oise. There was also disruption on school buses and the wider school network in Marne and Nièvre.
Today, school buses have been cancelled in Seine-et-Marne, Saône-et-Loire and in Côte-d'Or, as well as many areas of the Pyrénées-Orientales.
