Europe In Misery

The crew of a border patrol ship waits as their boat is freed from frozen Danube waters by an ice breaker, in Giurgiu, southern Romania, Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012. Bulgaria and Romania are suspending all shipping on the Danube River due to severe frost and the vast amount of ice blocking the heavily traveled waterway, Bulgaria's Transport Ministry said Wednesday.Authorities say up to 90 percent of the river surface is covered with floating ice, making it extremely difficult to traverse Europe's main commercial waterway, which winds 2,860-kilometer (1,777-mile) from Germany and serves as the natural border between Bulgaria and Romania. Photo: Vadim Ghirda / AP

Europe's winter of misery just keeps on going. Over 460 people across Europe are now held to have lost their lives as a result of the unrelenting cold, heavy snows, floods and other associated environmental activities not reflective of a normal winter season across Europe. The homeless are particularly afflicted by the freezing cold, with temperatures dipping to minus-30 and colder. Those who are unable to afford fuel for warmth have also been found frozen in their homes.

The unaccustomed deep freeze seems unrelenting. It has plagued Europe - particularly Ukraine - for the past two weeks with no sign yet of a return to more normal weather patterns. Dams have broken and caused icy floods to inundate small villages and further isolate already desperate residents. Boats have been trapped in thick ice; in Ukraine 120 of those boats are of foreign origin, little did they anticipate this would occur.

The Danube River, flowing through ten countries, vital for transport, power, irrigation, industry and fishing has been blocked in whole or in part at various places throughout its 2,860-kilometre stretch, from Austria to the Black Sea. Shipping is not anticipated to be able to resume for the next two weeks. In Bulgaria 224 vessels are stuck in ports where temperatures have dropped to -28.6 C in places.

Gas flowing from the pipeline stretching from Russia through Ukraine to Europe has not been of sufficient quantity to fulfill the emergency energy needs of a freezing Europe. Ukraine at first was being accused of holding back more for their own use, but they issued strenuous denials. Russia is simply not providing as much as contracted for, given their own precarious situation.

In the Balkans flooding has prevented Serbian railways from completing the length of their usual runs. The Czech Republic is suffering under the extreme cold, and the homeless continue to freeze to death everywhere. People have drowned in the icy waters when dams can no longer hold back the water that floods through villages.

Italy has been warned that more snow can be anticipated along with freezing winds, creating more havoc. Soldiers have been working to free villages where three metres of snow have plunged them deep in snow. In some villages food is becoming a scarce commodity where the villages have been barricaded by snowfall, and require emergency aid deliveries.

It is now past time for nature to relent, and to pull back her forces to allow humans to take stock of the damage done to their lives.