Europe gripped by ice and snow

ATHENS, Greece -- Snow storms, gale-force winds and heavy rain swept across Greece and Turkey on Monday, as large parts of Europe remained in the icy grip of winter.

A woman drowned in Turkey, and a family of five were feared to have been swept away.

In Greece, the bad weather forced authorities to shut down airports, close major highways and leave ships anchored at port.

A father and son from the southern town of Patras were missing after falling into a swollen river on Sunday. The government declared a state of emergency in the region.

Two days of heavy snowfall and temperatures as low as -10C forced the closure of all northern Greek airports, including Thessaloniki international airport, and all schools in northwestern Greece.

The highway patrol struggled to keep the motorway linking Athens and Thessaloniki open, despite 40cm of snow in some places.

"We expect the bad weather conditions to ease from Tuesday evening, but we could be in for a white Christmas," a meteorologist told Reuters.

In Turkey, a woman drowned and a family of five was feared killed as storms caused floods and power cuts.

The 30-year-old was swept away in flood waters on Sunday as she tried to rescue her car in the Aegean port city of Izmir, where a river burst its banks and flooded the city's streets, the Anatolia news agency reported.

A car carrying five people was swept away by floods in the village of Kirkkavak, in southern Turkey.

Rescuers there were trying to pull the car out of a river, local governor Mehmet Capraz told Anatolia.

In Izmir, police used armoured personnel carriers to rescue people trapped in their homes, Anatolia said.

Two days of heavy snowfall blocked hundreds of village roads in eastern and northwestern Turkey.

Meanwhile, mountain rescue teams were searching for two skiers, including a French national, who failed to return to their hotel in the ski resort of Uludag, in northwestern Bursa province, Anatolia said.

Heavy snowfall has caused traffic chaos in Italy, southern France and Spain. Spain suffered the worst problems caused by snow for 15 years, and temperatures in Venice remained well below freezing.

Nearly a dozen villages in the remote mountains of northern Corsica remained inaccessible on Monday, four days after a snowfall triggered a major relief operation on the French Mediterranean island.

Nearly 4,000 homes on the island were without electricity, and 2,500 had no telephone connection, the authorities said. They hoped to have the situation back to normal by Tuesday.

In Poland, cold weather has killed 117 people the beginning of October, officials say.

It was a similar picture in Russia where the cold is said to have been responsible for more than 220 deaths since October 1.