Havoc as UK Arctic snap continues

University of Dundee/AP

COLD SNAP CONTINUES:Arctic conditions continue in Britain, facing its coldest winter in 30 years.

Snow in the UK

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UK SNOW: A girl walks across Westminster Bridge during snow fall in London. Blizzards swept across central and southern England, bringing more road and rail chaos.

Eurostar stuck in Channel Tunnel

Europe's deep freeze deepens

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Widespread ice and sub-zero temperatures continued to cause disruption across Britain, with the coldest weather in 30 years showing little sign of easing as forecasters predicted more snow.

The Met Office said severe weather warnings remained in place for eastern England, where up to 5cm of snow is expected during the course of Thursday, with ice now the main problem as temperatures in most areas remain below freezing.

"Considering we had areas quite widely reporting 20-30cm of snow over the last 48 hours, it is nowhere near as much as that but it is still severe weather because it is a case of ice combined with fresh accumulations of snow," said Met Office forecaster Chris Bulmer.

"The ice problem is not really going to go away, it is going to be quite persistent over the next few days."

He forecast further snowfall across eastern areas for the rest of the week, with possible heavy outbreaks across much of England and Wales on Sunday.

If the extreme weather continues until Saturday, it is estimated that the disruption could cost the economy up to 2 billion pounds.

The Federation of Small Businesses estimated about 10 percent of workforce missed work on Tuesday and Wednesday because of problems getting to work.

Temperatures as low as -17 C were recorded overnight in Oxfordshire, with many inland areas remaining between -10 C and -15 C into Thursday.

Wednesday's heavy snow fall hit power lines in Hampshire, leaving around 3000 people without power, while up to 5000 homes were also without electricity overnight in Sussex, Kent and Surrey.

The wintry conditions continued to create difficult driving conditions, with the Highways Agency warning further snow showers would impact the road networks across Lincolnshire, East Anglia and the North East.

The Local Government Association said the equivalent of 1.7 million miles of road had been gritted by local councils in England over the last three weeks.

Services on many rail routes across the country were also disrupted, with many operators including First Great Western, East Coast, Southeastern, South West Trains, National Express East Anglia and London Overground announcing reduced services and delays.

Major airports including Heathrow and Gatwick were open, although they warned there was significant disruption to both inbound and outbound flights and advised passengers to contact their airlines for the latest information.

Meanwhile thousands of schools remained shut, with Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire among the worst hit areas.

TUNNEL TRAINS

A Eurostar passenger train got stuck in the Channel Tunnel on Thursday after developing a technical fault, the second time in three weeks that trains have broken down in freezing conditions.

The Brussels-London service was towed out of the tunnel linking France and England and its 200 passengers transferred to a waiting train to complete their journey, Eurostar said.

A spokesman for SNCF, the French state railway firm that partly owns Eurostar, said the likely cause lay with the train's on-board signalling system rather than bad weather.

"It's not a problem linked to the cold or snow," the spokesman said.

Last month's failure, which brought a string of cancellations and chaotic scenes at railway stations, was blamed on powdery snow that melted into the trains.

A Eurostar spokesman said there would be knock-on delays to services because of the breakdown, but that no other trains had developed faults.

Long queues had built up at London's St. Pancras International station after the breakdown, which came as northern Europe shivered in severe winter weather.

Eurostar, owned by the French and Belgian state railways firms and by Britain, suspended all services for three days to find out what went wrong and to ensure trains ran safely.