MADRID - A RARE, heavy snowfall in central Spain closed Madrid's airport and paralysed traffic in the city and several German rivers were frozen over as much of Europe remained in the grip of Siberian conditions on Friday.

The bitter cold which has embraced the much of the continent since the end of last year comes amid Russian gas cuts to several European countries.

But not everyone was unhappy about the cold snap, as people in the Netherlands rediscovered the pleasures of skating along the iced-over canals.

All four runways at Madrid's Barajas airport, Europe's fourth busiest, were closed because of the snowfall and low visibility, Spain's national airport authority AENA said.

A total of 1,205 flights were scheduled to take off and land on Friday.

Nearly 400 kilometres of traffic jams and dozens of road accidents were recorded in and around the Spanish capital.

'Traffic is very difficult in the centre of Spain, many roads are cut especially in the Madrid region where it is recommended not to drive,' a spokesman for the interior ministry's traffic management agency DGT told AFP.

Up to 10 centimetres (four inches) of snow accumulated in Madrid as temperatures in the region dropped as low as minus 6 C (21 F).

The regional government of Madrid set up a 'crisis cabinet' to deal with the effects of the heavy snowfall, which also hit the region of Castilla-la-Mancha southeast of the capital as well as western Spain.

The northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela, a destination for thousands of pilgrims, recorded the heaviest snowfall in recent memory on Friday, according to the online edition of daily newspaper El Mundo.

Across the border in France, air, rail and road traffic began to return to normal in the region around the southern port of Marseille after two days of disruptions caused by heavy snow, which had paralysed the city on Thursday.

However, around 1,000 homes remained without electricity.

In Germany, the death toll from the cold snap rose to three and several rivers were frozen over, blocking ship traffic, authorities said.

Drift ice covered 80 to 90 percent of the surface of the river Elbe from Doemnitz to the Germany's main port of Hamburg in the north, a spokeswoman for the Water and Shipping Office said.

Some barges had to be freed late Thursday with industrial ice breakers.

Germany is experiencing one of its coldest winters of the past 100 years, with the mercury dropping as low as minus 34.6 C (minus 30.3 F) in the mountains in the south.

One person also died from the cold in Poland during the night, bringing the death toll in the country to 83 since November 1, most of them homeless people.

But after several days of bitter weather, conditions began to ease on Friday, with temperatures varying from minus 5 C (23 F) in the south to 3 C (37 F) in the north.

In Portugal, four people died in a fire apparently caused by a faulty heater in an apartment building in the city of Porto.

Temperatures that reached as low as minus 6 C (21 F) caused authorities in several Portugese cities to issue tents to homeless.

In the north of the country, the snow on Friday cut several main roads.

As temperatures plummeted throughout the continent, around a dozen European nations were suffering the effects of Russia's decision to turn off the natural gas supplies transiting through Ukraine to Europe.

Bulgaria received no Russian gas for the fourth day in a row as temperatures plummeted to minus 17 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) and heavy snow covering most of the country.

Many schools remained shut and gas-rationing continued for much of industry in order to save reserves which are currently estimated to be sufficient for 110 days.

A quarter of Bulgaria's 7.6-million citizens, primarily in the big cities, rely on heating from gas-fired plants that have been forced to cut back supply and switch to oil.

On Thursday the Czech presidency of the European Union said the 27-nation bloc was ill-prepared for the gas crisis and needed better contingency planning and infrastructure.

It added that two-thirds of the member states had been hit by the Russia-Ukraine energy dispute.

Russia cut supplies for Ukraine's domestic market on January 1 due to a payments dispute, and then on Wednesday shut off gas transiting through the former Soviet republic to Europe. -- AFP