Extreme weather conditions affected late last week Bucharest and 54 towns and villages in 20 Romanian counties
In many parts of Romania, people woke up on Friday morning in a Nordic fairy tale. Freezing rain turned the entire landscape, including the towns and cities, into crystal. Utterly spectacular pics poured into social networks, but unfortunately the landscape was as dangerous as it was fascinating. Freezing rain is a meteorological phenomenon occurring in winter months, but rather infrequent in Romania. It happens when rain drops freeze almost instantly if the temperature on the ground is below zero. A thin layer of ice thus forms on streets, vegetation, cars, electricity poles and everything else.
At the end of last week, for 2 or 3 days, the counties in the south of Romania were under code yellow and orange alerts for freezing rain. Thousands of trees collapsed under the weight of the ice, and fell like bowling pins, some of them torn from the very roots. In cities, including Bucharest, many trees fell into the street and on hundreds of cars, causing substantial damages. In the capital city alone, fire-fighters received ten times more calls than usually and instead of enjoying a peaceful weekend every neighbourhood saw special teams coming to collect the piles of fallen branches and trunks. Roads became truly dangerous, both for cars and for pedestrians. Public transportation was equally problematic, because the ice affected the electric networks fuelling trams and trolleys.
The freezing rain also posed serious problems for air traffic: air-planes were grounded for hours, as de-icing manoeuvres turned useless. Road traffic was temporarily suspended on motorways, national and county roads, and weight restrictions were introduced.
Road transport was also affected, and so were electricity lines, with thousands of families left in the dark. According to the Interior Ministry, beginning on Friday until Sunday, when 74 alerts and warnings were issued, as many as 8,000 fire-fighters, police and gendarme troops were deployed to field operations every day. Some of them were off duty this weekend, but sacrificed their free time to help citizens. Freezing rain was also accompanied by snowfalls and snowstorms, particularly in the mountains.
In the coming days, the weather will improve, so snow and ice will no longer pose problems, but the risk of flooding, due to the snow melting, will be very high. (Translated by AM Popescu, edited by D. Vijeu)
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