Page 30 - bon-dia-aruba-20210119

A30 world news
Diamars 19 Januari 2021

Freezing temps bring Europe traffic chaos, smog, avalanche

on Monday after tracks at expected to be replaced by In Germany, fresh snow, slip-
two Warsaw railway stations heavy snowfall in the north- pery roads and fallen trees led
cracked. eastern Czech Republic, the to several car accidents on
institute said. Sunday and overnight, the
Hand-in-hand with the cold dpa news agency reported. A
came a spike in smog in War- Wintry weather and freezing driver died in southwestern
saw and other parts of Po- temperatures were report- Germany after his car shot
land, as the cold prompted ed throughout the Balkans, over a mound of snow.
an increase in burning coal which has created problems
for heat. Air pollution levels with power supplies in Ser- The Nordic region also saw
were so high in Warsaw that bia and brought some snow snow and subfreezing tem-
city officials urged people to even to Croatia’s Adriatic Sea peratures, with the cold-
remain indoors. islands. est temperatures predict-
ably recorded in the Arctic.
Just across Poland's south- In eastern Albania, tempera- Norway’s meteorological
western border, the Czech tures dipped as low as minus institute tweeted a tongue-
(AP) — Extreme cold has earlier after heavy snowfall. Republic experienced the 13 degrees Celsius (9 Fahr- in-cheek message on Mon-
hit large parts of Europe, Officials said the skier and coldest night this year with enheit) in Peshkopi, 110 ki- day, saying: “we encourage all
with freezing tempera- his two companions were temperatures dropping be- lometers (70 miles) east of knitting lovers to send wool-
tures cracking railroad buried by an avalanche while low minus 20 degrees Cel- the capital, Tirana. The deep en clothes to their friends in
tracks in Poland, snow skiing off marked trails in the sius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) in freeze caused water pipes to the north.”
blanketing the Turkish Gstaad area on Sunday. One many places. freeze and created danger- In Denmark, police found
metropolis of Istanbul man freed himself from the ous driving conditions. Icy 17 people ice bathing na-
and smog spiking as more snow and then extricated one The lowest temperature — roads in the city of Pogradec ked on Sunday in a lake near
coal was being burned to of the others, but the third minus 27 degrees Celsius prevented firefighters from Roskilde, 40 kilometers (25
generate heat. man could only be found by (minus 16 Fahrenheit) — was arriving in time to a home miles) west of Copenhagen.
rescue crews, who arrived recorded Monday in Orlicke fire in which a man died early Everyone in the group, aged
In Switzerland, a skier who later. Zahori, a mountainous vil- Monday. between 26 and 51, was pre-
had been buried by an ava- lage 160 kilometers (100 liminarily charged with vio-
lanche over the weekend died Temperatures dropped to miles) east of Prague near the In Istanbul, traffic was lating pandemic restrictions
in a hospital of his injuries, minus 28 degrees Celsius Polish border, according to brought to a halt by the lay- limiting gatherings to five
authorities said Monday. (minus 18 Fahrenheit) in the Czech Hydrometeoro- er of snow covering the city, people. Police said they will
some Polish areas overnight, logical Institute. with cars stalled or skidding all receive a fine, which is
The country had issued ava- the coldest night in 11 years. on the roads. 2,500 kroner ($405) for first-
lanche warnings several days Many trains were delayed The freezing weather was time offenders.

Woman ruled dead in 2017 fights to be declared alive

(AP) — Frenchwoman Jeanne Pouchain
has an unusual problem. She's officially According to Pouchain and her attorney,
dead. She has been trying for three years snowballing judicial errors ended with the
to prove that she is alive. 2017 ruling by the Appeals Court of Lyon that
Pouchain was not among the living. The legal
The 58-year-old woman says she lives in con- imbroglio is all the stranger because, Pouchain
stant fear, not daring to leave her house in the contended, neither she nor her relatives re-
village of Saint Joseph, in the Loire region. ceived a summons for the hearing.
Authorities seized her car over an unpaid debt
she contests and which is at the center of her Pouchain’s husband and son were left with an
troubles. She fears the family furniture will be order to pay 14,000 euros ($17,000) to the for-
next. mer employee.
Pouchain’s status has prevented her and her Cormier, her attorney, filed an unusual mo-
husband, who is her legal beneficiary along tion last Monday to invalidate the 2017 deci-
with her son, from using their joint bank ac- sion by the Lyon appeals court due to a “grave
count. Being declared deceased has deprived error” by the judges. He said he has never be-
her of other critical amenities. fore dealt with such a “crazy” case.

“I no longer exist,” Pouchain said by telephone. “At first, I had a hard time believing my cli-
“I don’t do anything....I sit on the veranda and ent,” he said.
write.” She called the situation “macabre."
Pouchain says she can’t forgive her ex-em-
Pouchain's status as deceased is the result of ployee for her plight but won’t identify the
a 2017 Lyon court decision that deemed her woman. The former employee’s lawyer did
dead even though no death certificate was not respond to several requests for comment.
produced. The decision came at the end of a
legal dispute with an employee of Pouchain's Cormier points the finger at the judges and
former cleaning company, who was seeking their “extreme reticence to repair their error.”
compensation after losing her job 20 years ago.
But the initial complaint in France's Prud- “When an error is so enormous, it’s hard to
homme workers' court misfired, falling on admit,” he said.
Pouchain, whose lawyer claims her company
had no responsibility for the dismissal. A se- Pouchain remains stubbornly hopeful that her
ries of legal proceedings, decisions and appeals attorney’s bid to overturn the judgement will
followed, all the way to the Court of Cassa- succeed.
tion, France's highest court, which dismissed
the case as outside its domain, Pouchain and “It’s my last chance to recover my life,” she
her lawyer, Sylvain Cormier, said. said.