Accidents aplenty as snow hits Sweden

Icy roads and harsh weather conditions have caused several accidents over night and the Swedish Transport Agency (Trafikverket) is urging drivers to take precautions of severe road conditions countrywide.

• Warnings as winter storm heads toward Sweden (8 Dec 11)
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“Drivers should slow down, increase distances between the vehicles, and be aware that journeys may take longer than usual,” the agency wrote on its website.

A serious traffic accident occurred near Kungälv, in western Sweden, where a car and a bus were involved in a head-on collision.

The driver of the car later died from his injuries, whereas the three passengers and the driver of the bus were left shocked but unscathed by the event, according to police spokesperson Björ Blixer.

Police don’t know as of yet, whether it was the weather or human error was cause of the accident.

In many places in southern Sweden the weather has wreaked havoc on roadways with trucks going of the road, getting stuck, or tipping over.

Near Hallstahammar, in central Sweden, a truck careened straight into the ditch on the E18 highway around 2am, causing a three-hour delay for traffic both ways.

Police in Örebro County report several trucks getting stuck over night and sliding down steeper stretches of road.

The northeastern coast of Sweden is one of the areas hit worst by the weather so far.

Forecasters have warned that up to 25 centimetres of snow may fall, and the harsh wind makes conditions more serious.

The Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, SMHI, has issued a class 2 warning for the area.

The gusty winds have downed power lines in several parts of the country.

In addition, around 12,000 customers of power companies Eon, Vattenfall, and Fortum, were left without power on Friday morning.

Most of the outages occurred in in Kalmar, Stockholm, and Värmland counties

According to Fortum, there are "large disruptions in electricity delivery".

The company is working hard to fix downed lines, according to its website, but as long as the strong winds continue, there the risk of additional outages remains.