Local authorities faced a barrage of criticism from many motorists who spent two days and nights in their vehicles on the snowbound A3 autostrada between Salerno and Reggio Calabria without receiving help.

Some 200 soldiers were drafted in to dig stranded vehicles out from thick snow and take their occupants to safety along a 160-kilometre (100-mile) section of the motorway.

Many had spent two days and nights trapped without food and water. Hospitals in the region were treating 11 people for exposure, Italian media reports said.

Local hotels and schools in the Vallo Di Diano area of Campania have been turned into reception centres for stranded drivers, and local authorities provided blankets, hot meals and bottles of water for motorists recovering from their ordeal.

But many others said they had been ignored by the thinly spread emergency services.

"We spent 48 hours on the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway without anyone, and I mean anyone, offering us the slightest help. We spent two night in the cold, in the car, eating what we had with us and drinking snow," said Luigi Ruggiero, deputy mayor of the small town of Ciro Marina.

He and his driver had been stranded on the A3 autostrada from 10:00 am (0900 GMT) on Wednesday until 7:00 am Friday.

"In 48 hours we got no help, not from the traffic police, the civil protection, the fire services, nobody."

As the cold snap continued, two early morning regional flights from Naples airport were cancelled due to ice on the wings of the aircraft.

Around 150 articulated trucks remained blocked on a national roadway beteween the southern regions of Basilicata and Campania early Friday, police said.