In southwest Poland about 30,000 homes were without electricity.

"We have a large number of small blackouts caused by trees that broke under the weight of wet snow which damaged power lines," PAP news agency quoted Vattenfall power company spokesman Lukasz Zimnoch as saying.

In the Katowice area "technicians but also woodcutters and skiers haven't stopped working for us," he added.

In Romania, thousands of people in more than 100 towns and villages in the north were also without electricity after a heavy snowstorm carpeted the Neamt and Bacau regions.

"Some 50,000 people were affected in Neamt alone and more than 300 substations and eight power lines have been damaged by heavy snowfalls," state power company Electrica spokesman Lucian Luca told AFP.

"Around 20 emergency teams are working to restore the current," he added.

Meanwhile the south and east of the country were hit by floods after above average temperatures brought heavy rains, swelling rivers and inundating dozens of homes in the Vrancea and Gorj regions, the environment ministry said.

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