Blizzards and storm-force gales wreak havoc on road and rail

A driver was killed and dozens of people were rescued from stranded or crashed vehicles yesterday as parts of Britain were gripped by blizzards and storm force gales.

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One dead as North is gripped by blizzards

A driver was killed and dozens of people were rescued from stranded or crashed vehicles yesterday as parts of Britain were gripped by blizzards and storm force gales.

Snowdrifts of up to 20ft (6m) paralysed the Scottish Highlands, while motorists and rail passengers endured a day of misery as the transport network was thrown into chaos.

Northern counties were the worst affected by the sudden cold snap.

In Durham, a motorist was killed and his passenger injured when their car slid off the slush-covered A19 and hit a lamp-post.

It took RAF Sea King helicopters two attempts in treacherous conditions to airlift three casualties to hospital from the scene of a road accident on the A1 in North Yorkshire.

The crash, which involved 23 vehicles and left 13 people injured, was one of three on the road in the space of hours. On the A9 in Scotland, between Wick and Inverness, 16 people – including a child – had to be rescued by police after becoming trapped in their snow-covered cars. Officers were forced to tunnel through the drifts to reach them after a plough became grounded near Caithness.

Further north, a man with breathing problems had to be airlifted to hospital from his remote cottage near Lybster, in the north-east corner of the country near John O'Groats.

Some parts of the south also suffered from freak conditions. In Wallington, Surrey, a five-year-old girl and her mother were rescued by firefighters after a tree fell on their parked car and trapped it.

And three rowers were taken to hospital to be treated for exposure after heavy swells overturned their boat in the River Thames in south-west London.

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, more than 1,600 homes were left without electricity as engineers battled to re-erect power lines brought down overnight.

As ferocious snow showers forced the closure of roads across the UK, railways, too, were affected. Although both main lines between England and Scotland were reopened following their temporary closure overnight, numerous services were cancelled on the west coast line, which was reduced to a single track.

Virgin, which ran only a fraction of its scheduled trains between London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, said it did not expect normal services to resume until at least noon today.

Sporting fixtures were also badly hit. Though the two Scottish Cup quarter-finals were able to go ahead, four league matches north of the border were cancelled at the last minute.

Hazardous conditions and heavy snow showers are likely to continue today.