Sweden suffers power cuts after heavy snowfall

Thousands of households across northern Sweden and southern Finland were without power Wednesday after heavy snowfall and storms, and forecasters warned that particularly icy temperatures lay ahead for the Baltic Sea region.

Up to 60 centimeters of snow in places brought rail traffic to a standstill.

The Swedish weather service said the snow storms, which had affected the northern part of Sweden over the past 24 hours, were still taking place but slowing down.

About 3,000 homes are still without power, and outages may go on longer than usual because it may be too risky to send out maintenance workers.

In neighbouring Finland, snow blanketed southern Finland, and warnings for poor road conditions have been issued for almost all of southern and western Finland.

In southwestern Finland, around 4,000 households were without power, according to Finnish broadcaster YLE, with authorities saying that number could rise.

YLE said the snowfall was expected to decrease Wednesday and would gradually be replaced by severe cold, with temperatures in the coming days dropping to -25 C (-13 F) in the south and -40 C (-40 F) in the Arctic region.