Hundreds of vehicles were stuck for hours in a cold traffic jam over the Norwegian mountains on Sunday, after accidents closed the main E134 highway over the Haukeli Pass. On Monday morning, slick roads set off more accidents, including a 60-car pile-up on the E39 highway in Bergen.
Two people were sent to hospital on Monday after the massive chain collision in Bergen. “It was frighteningly slippery,” one motorist whose car ran into a wall told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)
Cars stood at all angles after one after another bumped into either each other or guardrails and retaining walls along the highway. It apparently started when several cars and a large truck collided, causing others to lose control when they tried to stop. The chain collision occurred over a 200-meter-long stretch of the highway in the northbound lanes of of the E39 just after the Eidsvågs Tunnel.
Meanwhile, in the mountains southeast of Bergen, some motorists sat in their cars until 2am Monday, waiting for police to clear accidents and for snowy weather to ease enough for the E134 to re-open. The accidents and road closure occurred just as thousands of Norwegians were heading off for a week of annual winter holiday. “Many spent their whole day just sitting in traffic,” Ove Amundsen of a state traffic control center told NRK.
newsinenglish.no staff
