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FERRY

Ferry runs aground at France’s Calais port

A ferry with more than 300 people on board ran aground Sunday in high winds at Calais in northern France, interrupting traffic in one of Europe's busiest passenger ports but causing no injuries.

Published: 10 December 2017 17:09 CET
Ferry runs aground at France's Calais port
Photo: AFP

“The vessel is stable. Port officers are looking at how to refloat it,” an official in the local administration told AFP, without giving his name.

A spokeswoman for the P&O shipping company said the ferry, The Pride of Kent, ran aground after it hit a gangway while making to leave for Dover, its destination in Britain.

There were 316 people on board — 208 of them passengers, government officials said.

Two tug boats were trying to pull the ferry free but the task was proving difficult, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.

More than nine million passengers used Calais to cross the channel in 2016, according to official numbers.

READ ALSO: Channel ferry services hit as fierce winds lash France's northern coast

WEATHER

Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

Blizzards in Denmark this week have resulted in the greatest depth of snow measured in the country for 13 years.

Published: 4 January 2024 14:18 CET
Denmark records deepest snow level for 13 years

A half-metre of snow, measured at Hald near East Jutland town Randers, is the deepest to have occurred in Denmark since January 2011, national meteorological agency DMI said.

The measurement was taken by the weather agency at 8am on Thursday.

Around 20-30 centimetres of snow was on the ground across most of northern and eastern Jutland by Thursday, as blizzards peaked resulting in significant disruptions to traffic and transport.

A much greater volume of snow fell in 2011, however, when over 100 centimetres fell on Baltic Sea island Bornholm during a post-Christmas blizzard, which saw as much as 135 centimetres on Bornholm at the end of December 2010.

READ ALSO: Denmark’s January storms could be fourth extreme weather event in three months

With snowfall at its heaviest for over a decade, Wednesday saw a new rainfall record. The 59 millimetres which fell at Svendborg on the island of Funen was the most for a January day in Denmark since 1886. Some 9 weather stations across Funen and Bornholm measured over 50cm of rain.

DMI said that the severe weather now looks to have peaked.

“We do not expect any more weather records to be set in the next 24 hours. But we are looking at some very cold upcoming days,” DMI meteorologist and press spokesperson Herdis Damberg told news wire Ritzau.

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