Heavy snow strands hundreds on German highway

Dozens of people were trapped in their cars overnight after a German motorway was blocked by heavy snow.Police could be seen directing traffic off the blocked roads in the early hours of Sunday morning in the northern state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania as the snow and wind storms from low pressure front Daisy continued to cause travel chaos. Over the weekend hundreds of road accidents across the country injured a number of people and caused traffic jams on several main roads, police said. A spokesperson for Frankfurt airport said that around 60 flights had been cancelled at the country's biggest airport, after more than 200 had been cancelled on Saturday. Aside from a few isolated incidents in the southeast, rail travel in Europe's largest economy was not seriously affected, a spokesman for rail operator Deutsche Bahn said. Late on Friday, a plane departing the southern city of Nuremberg skidded from the runway and got stuck in the snow prior to take-off. No passengers were injured. Authorities had issued warnings before hit Germany this weekend, advising households to stock up on food and avoid unnecessary travel. Disruptions on Saturday were generally deemed to be less severe than expected. The DWD meteorological service said the front would move north in the course of the day, and that winds of up to 100 kph (60 mph) were possible on Germany's Baltic coast.