Heavy snowfalls and freezing rain across Germany have led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains, crashes on icy roads, and school closures.

At Frankfurt airport, Germany’s biggest, more than 500 flights were cancelled on Wednesday, while in Munich over 250 arrivals and departures were cancelled.

In western Germany, Saarbruecken airport closed for the day, as Duesseldorf and Cologne/Bonn airports were also affected by delays and cancellations.

National train operator Deutsche Bahn canceled several long-distance connections and announced that the maximum speed of its fast ICE train would be limited to 200 km per hour due to the extreme weather.

The freezing rain across western and southern Germany also led to countless crashes on icy roads in the early morning hours of Wednesday.

The weather service warned of an extreme risk of black ice and heavy snowfall in the affect regions through Thursday.

As a precaution, many schools and kindergartens in the country closed for the day, and some companies offered their employees the option of working from home.