Four people were found dead Thursday after being caught in an avalanche in Poland's southern Tatra mountains, the Polish news agency PAP reported citing rescue services.

The two men and two women, who set off from a mountain shelter Wednesday to explore a cave, were swept away by an avalanche 50 meters (yards) wide and 400 meters long and fell several hundred meters.

In Britain, snow drifts led to the cancellation of more than 200 flights out of London's Heathrow airport late Wednesday and a further 80 had been dropped by early Thursday, an airport spokesman said.

Two other airports close to London, Gatwick and Stansted, were also affected with a total of 18 flights cancelled due to the weather.

Freezing temperatures turned roads into skating rinks and brought chaos to traffic with the breakdown group, the Automobile Association, working at full-stretch with twice the number of call-outs to help drivers in trouble.

Some of the major rail networks serving the south of the country were forced to cancel trains, while London Underground lines running above ground also experienced some trouble.

In Germany, heavy snowfall snarled road traffic and led to the cancellation of 76 flights at Frankfurt international airport, the country's largest.

Authorities said two-thirds of the remaining planes from Frankfurt were delayed and that the wintry weather was likely to affect air traffic for the rest of the day.

In the southern city of Munich 40 flights were cancelled, although an airport spokesman said only one-quarter of the problems were related to snow in the region. The rest were the result of weather-related delays in other German cities or other parts of Europe.

The airports in the cities of Stuttgart and Duesseldorf also reported major disruptions to their flight schedules.

In three western states, waylaid tractor-trailer trucks blocked autobahn routes for hours leading to bottlenecks for morning commuters. Dozens of people were injured in crashes throughout the country as the roads turned slick.

Schools in the western state of Hesse were cancelled after the sudden snow storm, which began overnight.

Temperatures were expected to climb above the freezing point over the weekend after weeks of frosty weather in much of the country.

In France, road traffic restrictions went into force in Paris after an overnight snowfall, but similar measures in other parts of the country were lifted early Thursday, officials said.

Services at the main Paris airports were reported to be near normal, after delays were caused on Wednesday at Charles de Gaulle Airport by a combination of snow and fog.

However the Paris airports authority advised air travellers to check whether their flights were delayed before leaving home.

With the exception of the Mediterranean coast, most of France was blanketed in snow overnight.

In Denmark, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) cancelled 53 flights out of Copenhagen's Kastrup airport Thursday morning because of heavy snowfall and a strike by one of the companies that supplies the airport with jet fuel.

By early afternoon, traffic returned to normal after weather conditions improved and strikers returned to work, said Troels Rasmussen, a SAS spokesman in Copenhagen.

In Belgium and Luxembourg, heavy snowfalls also brought road and rail delays and led to the cancellation of flights, while opening several downhill ski runs in Belgium's southern hills.

Huge traffic jams built up around Brussels and other cities, while 20 accidents were reported in the southeastern region around Liege. In Luxembourg authorities advised people not to use their cars.

The Franco-Belgian border was closed to lorries overnight due to the bad weather, although truckers were allowed to start up again as the snow let up in the morning.

At Brussels airport a number of flights were delayed and some cancelled, notably to short-haul destinations such as Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki, London and Munich.

In Switzerland, snowfall also disrupted rail and road traffic, particularly in Bern and Geneva, but no serious accidents were reported.

TERRA.WIRE