1st LD Writethru: Greece battered by cold front, one killed
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E-mail Xinhua, January 8, 2019
ATHENS, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- A migrant lost his life on Rhodes island on Tuesday, while trying to warm up using a makeshift wood stove, Greek national news agency AMNA reported, as a new cold front battered Greece, bringing freezing temperatures and snowfall even in low altitudes.
The victim was living in an old house at the island's capital with no electricity. According to the initial information he suffocated from fumes, while two other migrants who were his housemates were transferred to the local hospital with breathing problems.
In Athens and many parts of Greece, people woke on Tuesday to the sight of urban centers blanketed in snow, as the weather system, dubbed "Telemachos", has been sweeping the country since Monday evening, following two other cold fronts which gripped Greece since the start of the year.
Police temporarily cut off traffic on regional roads in Athens suburbs and the highway Athens-Lamia linking the capital to northern Greece. Suburban railway services to the airport were also briefly interrupted.
By noon the situation had improved, Spyros Georgiou, spokesperson of the Interior Ministry's General Secretariat of Civil Protection, told Xinhua.
"There was a forecast for heavy snowfall. The state mechanism was ready. All forces of police, the fire brigade, the regional government and municipalities were in alert," he said.
"The intense snowfall caused some problems in particular in the northern part of Attica region. There were disruptions of road traffic," said Georgiou.
But he added that problems are being solved with only some minor ones regarding power cuts.
Road traffic has also been disrupted in many other parts of Greece, while no disruptions were reported so far on Tuesday in ferry services and flights.
In several districts of Athens and its suburbs, as well as in other regions in the northern parts of the country, schools remained closed due to the snowfall.
Power cuts were reported in Athens' northern suburbs and on the island of Skopelos.
The Fire Brigade has intervened in many cases nationwide to transfer stranded patients or motorists to hospitals or safe sites since Monday, according to an e-mailed press release.
According to Greece's meteorological service, the cold front will be brief and recede by Wednesday. Enditem
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