Fire Service Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Mukics said the operative board handling the consequences of the extreme weather held a meeting chaired by Interior Minister Sandor Pinter early on Thursday.

Disaster management forces had to take action to protect human life only in one instance, in Akaszto, in southern Hungary, where the roof of a house collapsed, Mukics said.

Social services are operating at 85.6 percent capacity, "no one needs to spend the night outdoors," he added.

Crucial elements of infrastructure such as energy, gas, heating and drinking water supplies are operational, as is the delivery of basic foodstuffs and medicine, he said. There is a power outage in two localities, in Nagypeterd and Rozsafa in Baranya County, in southern Hungary, but that is also expected to be resolved within a matter of hours, he said.

Health-care services are up and running and school started everywhere; no locality or road in the country is cut off, he said.

Mukics thanked all those helping to handle the snow situation, as well as health-care and law enforcement employees, for their work.

According to the meteorological service, there is increasingly smaller chance of snow in the coming days but winds are expected to pick up nationwide. Several areas are now under an orange alert for risk of snowdrifts, he added.

Snowdrifts and freezing rain are expected in the coming days, with temperatures falling further as low as -15-20 degrees Celsius, he warned.

The road management authority used 796 vehicles to clear the snow and ice from the roads, he said. Disaster management, police and ambulance services deployed 4,763 people and 2,008 vehicles. Police received alerts of 200 road accidents, one of which was fatal and 16 included injuries, he said.

The police and the civil guard checked on 3,289 elderly people living alone in remote localities, and aided 190 of them, he said. The ambulance services were deployed to 4,144 rescue missions on Wednesday alone, and treated 748 trauma patients, he said.

Meanwhile, 1,059 troops and 210 adapted vehicles of the Armed Forces, as well as 113 troops and 9 vehicles of counter-terrorism unit TEK are standing by, ready to be deployed in snowed-in areas, he said.

Regarding transport services, Mukics said that rail cargo traffic has been halted since Wednesday afternoon except for essential deliveries. Passenger trains are largely running with no more than 30 mintues' delay, and "a few fallouts on the lines to God and Monor" near Budapest, he said.

Ten smaller localities are cut off from bus services; the list of localities and bus stops are available at utinform.hu, he said.

Air and water traffic is uninterrupted nationwide, he added.

Mukics called on citizens to refrain from travelling in areas under weather alerts whenever possible, and on local authorities to ensure the accessibility of schools, kindergartens, hospitals and walk-in clinics.

Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Prime Minister's Office, said that homeless shelters were operating at 85 percent capacity; he asked citizens to report encounters with homeless people "in a bad state". He said that railway stations of state-owned company MAV will also be heated and open for the homeless.

Red alert issued about homeless in Hungary after heavy snowfall

We have more places at homeless shelters than homeless people in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a video on Facebook on Thursday.

The video showed Orban talking about the need to provide care for homeless people "in times like these" at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, saying that the task belonged to local authorities.

Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said that while homeless care was a task of municipalities, state secretary Attila Fulop was instructed to brief local authorities on the matter and a red alert was issued, which scrapped the limits on the number of people that can be taken in at shelters. More than 20 percent of places are still free, he said: "basically, we can ensure placement for all homeless people in the country..."

Further, police patrols have been instructed to deliver all homeless people found in public areas to shelters, he added.

"We are taking special care of those living rough. Take care of each other," Orban said in the post.

MTI Stock Photo - for illustrative purposes only

Source: MTI – Hungary’s national news agency since 1881. While MTI articles are usually factual, some may contain political bias, and readers should be aware that such content does not reflect the position of XpatLoop, which is neutral and independent.

Since the goal of XpatLoop is to keep readers well briefed, right across the spectrum of opinions, MTI items are shared to ensure readers are aware of all narratives within the local media.

XpatLoop believes in empowering readers to form their own views through complete and comprehensive coverage. To facilitate this XpatLoop has a balanced range of news partners, as you can see when you surf around XpatLoop.com
 

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