Bitter Cold, Snow, Fog Grip Europe : Soviets Report 48 Deaths; 200 Greek Villages Isolated

Swedes donned long johns on the advice of Arctic survival experts; waist-deep snow isolated more than 200 Greek mountain villages and the Soviet Union reported 48 weather-related deaths as a bitter cold wave gripped Europe today.

Freezing fog forced the cancellation of scores of flights at London’s Heathrow Airport, and hazardous road conditions caused traffic accidents, injuries and deaths as far south as northern Greece.

Among the deaths reported by the official Soviet press were those of a milkmaid and her two infants in the Tula region south of Moscow killed by smoke when an improvised electric heater caught fire. The cold is blamed for 48 deaths since Jan. 1, Izvestia said.

Freezing Fog in England

In Warsaw, where temperatures fell to 24 below zero, salesladies in the main Centrum department stores downtown bundled up in heavy overcoats and fur hats because the room temperature was only 23 above due to heating problems, a Polish television news report said.

A freezing fog covered much of southeast and central England on Thursday, forcing Heathrow Airport officials to cancel more than 60 arrivals and departures and delay 70 other flights for one to five hours, including 15 to the United States.

Air traffic controllers reported less than 490 feet of visibility at Heathrow and Gatwick, London’s two busiest airports. Many incoming planes were diverted to Luton, Stansted and Manchester; the Royal Air Force station at Northolt, and to Brussels and Paris.

Air traffic was back to normal this morning.

4 Superhighway Pileups

Highway pileups in Britain injured more than 50 people, police said. They said 60 vehicles were involved in four pileups at the junction of the M-1 and M-6 superhighways in central England in which 19 people were injured, three of them seriously.

Numbing temperatures were recorded in the Soviet Union and across Scandinavia, with readings of 25 below on Thursday in Moscow, 17 below in Helsinki, 4 below in Stockholm and 1 above in Oslo.

Although temperatures rose slightly today in Moscow, the thermometer was still down to 58 degrees below zero in Tyumen, the sprawling oil fields 1,050 miles east of Moscow.

Arctic survival experts recommended in newspaper articles that Swedes wear long johns and warm headgear to ward off the cold. They also advised people to skip washing their faces in the morning to preserve protective facial grease.