Alerts issued nationwide as Siberian cold snap sweeps south

The Siberian front sweeping across Europe continued its inexorable march south on Thursday, causing widespread disruption across the north of Spain.

Catalonia raised its alert level to "emergency" as the regional interior chief, Felipe Puig, announced school transport in 14 municipalities would be canceled on Friday. Some 260,000 children left school early in the region on Thursday as heavy snowfall descended, cutting off roads. Temperatures in Catalonia are expected to fall to between zero and -10 degrees over the weekend.

Remarkably, the fire service in Catalonia was only called to two incidents on Thursday, in both cases to help people get to their homes. An accident between a school bus, a truck and a saloon car left 18 students with injuries in Sant Boi de Lluçanès.

The extreme cold has been caused by easterly winds blowing down from Siberia and has so far caused more than 100 deaths around Europe. Temperatures in the Alps have plummeted to as low as -25 degrees and Italy has seen its coldest weather in 27 years with temperatures as low as -20 in the north of the country.

Alerts are in place in 50 of Spain's 52 provinces on Friday, with just A Coruña and Pontevedra excluded.