Early snow has led to chaos on roads, rails and in airports throughout Western Europe. In Germany, there has been heavy snowfall in the west of the country. The airport of Dusseldorf was closed for several hours on Saturday morning.

Several roads were cut off by fallen trees, leaving many motorists stranded. Schools and gymnasiums in Osnabruck and Munster were turned into emergency centres where people could spend the night.

Hundreds of train passengers near Osnabruck were forced to spend the night inside their carriages. In Britain, police urged people not to travel to southwest England unless necessary after hundreds of motorists were stranded overnight in heavy snow.

Snow also blanketed parts of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland where a train was derailed in a landslide. There has been a return to calm in the Netherlands where bad weather caused more than 600 kilometres of traffic jams on Friday. Many people were also left without electricity.

At least seven people were injured in a massive pile-up on a motorway in northern Belgium. And in Paris, tourists were turned away from the Eiffel Tower which had to be shut down on Saturday morning because of heavy snowfall.

PHOTO CAPTION

A boy is being covered with snow by his friends as they play in the southern city of Geleen, Netherlands, Saturday Nov. 26, 2005. (AP)