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Berlin's emergency services warn of danger of icy roads and pavements

The Local Germany
The Local Germany - [email protected]
Berlin's emergency services warn of danger of icy roads and pavements
Photo: DPA

The Local has already been hit by the icy conditions on Monday morning. Reporter Shelley Pascual fell off her bike on an icy patch of road on her way to work in Berlin. She wasn’t the only one.

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The Berlin fire services, which are responsible for accident rescue as well as dealing with fires, declared a state of emergency on Monday morning due to the large number of accidents they were responding to.

Shortly before 8am, the fire services reported being called out to over 50 different accident scenes, caused by black ice on the roads and pavements. Most of the emergency calls were for people who had slipped on the pavement.

They warned though that the icy roads were making it difficult for them to make it to the scenes of accidents as quickly as they normally would.

The Berlin fire services recommended that people leave their cars at home on Monday and travel by public transport. Meanwhile, a speed limit of 60 km/h has been imposed on the city's autobahn.

The Local's reporter Shelley Pascual was one of those who fell victim to the icy conditions when she fell off her own bike on the way to work. She reported seeing two other cyclists skid and fall in exactly the same spot.

The German Weather Service (DWD) issued a weather warning for most of north and east Germany, including Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Fire services in Hamburg were also busy on Monday dealing with pedestrians who had slipped and fallen on the perilous city surfaces.

Generally, the DWD predicts that the cold snap is finally over.

While the northeast of the country will still have to deal with freezing temperatures on Monday evening, the south and west of the country could see the mercury rise to 13C in the coming days.

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