- ATHENS (Reuters) - A freighter
with 17 crew members sank in rough seas in the eastern Mediterranean on
Friday as snowstorms and gales sweeping across the region forced Turkey
and Egypt to close key shipping routes. A powerful snowstorm battered much
of Turkey, and state-run Anatolian news agency said at least seven people
had died as a result of the violent weather. Two of them were children
who had gone to school to collect their report cards.
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- The heavy snowfalls caused traffic chaos and power cuts
in Romania and Bulgaria. In Italy freezing weather sweeping down from the
Baltics forced the closure of many schools and left Rome residents marvelling
at the rare sight of snow in the Italian capital.
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- "The reason why this storm has been particularly
strong is it's actually two systems meeting over a relatively short distance,"
said an official at Turkey's Meteorological Service.
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- Strong winds, high waves and a sandstorm brought shipping
in the Suez Canal to a halt as authorities shut the waterway linking the
Mediterranean and Red Sea. A number of Egyptian ports were also closed.
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- Turkey closed its Bosphorus and Dardanelles shipping
channels to Russian oil tankers and all other vessels due to extreme currents
and low visibility. Dozens of oil tankers were queued for passage, Turkish
maritime officials said.
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- Turkey's commercial capital Istanbul ground to a halt,
and governor Muammer Guler declared the area a disaster zone amid rolling
blackouts and cuts in water and natural gas supplies. The stock exchange
was closed and Guler said abandoned vehicles had shut down the main highway
linking Istanbul with Europe.
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- CONDITIONS "ATROCIOUS"
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- The Greek-owned cargo ship Kephi, which had left Istanbul
bound for a West African port with a 17-member mostly Egyptian crew, sank
in gale-force winds about 120 nautical miles west of Crete early on Friday
after sending out a distress signal, the Greek Merchant Marine Ministry
said.
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- U.S. and British-flagged ships responding to the Mayday
spotted only one lifeboat with two crew members aboard, the ministry said.
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- "The weather conditions in the area are atrocious.
The captain of the U.S. vessel had a lot of trouble approaching the lifeboat
where the two people were in. That's why in the end he only managed to
get the one out," a Greek Merchant Marine spokesman said.
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- Maltese authorities said the second crew member had been
rescued by a Russian-flagged ship.
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- A Greek Merchant Marine spokesman said no further survivors
had been found by early evening but the search would continue for another
72 hours. "There is always the possibility that some survivors could
be drifting in lifeboats," he said.
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- But the search effort is being hampered by the bad weather.
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- Much of the east Mediterranean is trapped between two
low pressure systems that moved in from the west and north, the Turkish
Meteorological Service official said.
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- "We're seeing the strength of the storm weakening
and slowly moving eastward," the official said.
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- Rain and some snow was forecast across much of the Mediterranean
in the coming three days, and another storm was expected over Greece and
Turkey on Sunday.
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- In Bulgaria, Turkey's northern neighbor, heavy snow and
storm-force winds temporarily left more than 100 towns and villages in
parts of the northeast and southeast without electricity and some without
water. Schools were also closed.
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- By evening, power had been restored to about 80 towns,
officials said.
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- STATE OF EMERGENCY
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- Civil defense officials called a state of emergency in
some of the affected regions,and strong winds forced authorities to temporarily
close Bulgaria's largest Black Sea port of Varna.
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- In neighboring Romania, officials said strong winds and
snow storms had disrupted road traffic, knocked out electricity and closed
Black Sea ports in southern and eastern Romania.
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- Italy is also gripped by a cold snap, with the central
city of L'Aquila recording minus 15 degrees Celsius overnight. Many schools
in southern Italy were shut.
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- Venice was draped with a thin blanket of snow on Friday
morning, and it even started snowing in Rome -- a rare sight.
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- "It is very strange seeing snow in Rome," said
Fabiana Polidori, a cleaner in her early forties. "I watched it from
the window. It's been many years since I saw snow."
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- (Additional reporting by Rome, Bucharest, Sofia, Istanbul,
Cairo bureaux)
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