A woman was killed and at least one person was seriously injured when their vehicle was swept down a cliff in a mudslide on Tuesday. The mudslide kicked off several vehicles from a coastal road nearby Bangor, Wales - tumbling 12 metres (40 feet) down a cliff. Flooding trapped a man on the roof of his car and another man in a tree in Somerset. Royal Air Force helicopters rescued them. Rough weather conditions caused a collision of two cargo-ships in the English Channel, coastguards said. Both ships were towed into a British port Tuesday morning.

Bitter cold, rain and winds characterized the weather of December 2000. Birmingham recorded mild 13°C (57 F) in the second week of December and -13°C (9 F) two weeks later. Such large temperature differences foster extreme weather conditions, but not only in Britain. Extreme cold in Poland killed 28 people during the last 10 days while winter-storms claimed six lives in Spain. In southwest Sweden some 30,000 homes were cut off from electricity after heavy snowstorms.