Moscow has been blanketed by its heaviest snowfall in 100 years as flurries see cars crushed by falling trees while temperatures drop to -12C.
An army of city workers have been furiously clearing roads in the Russian capital as 17 inches of snow falls over the course of the weekend.
Crews have cleared 1.2 million cubic metres of snow in the last 24 hours, while the sheer weight of the white stuff on trees in the city have caused 2,000 to fall – with more than 100 of those on vehicles.
A municipal worker clears snow on the Red Square after heavy snowfall in Moscow, Russia
People making their way through piles of snow in Moscow, after heavy snow falls in the city
An army of Moscow’s city workers have managed to clear 1.2 million cubic metres of snow in the last 24 hours
A motorist struggles to clear snow from the windscreen of her car after heavy falls over Moscow
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there had already been one fatality due to the poor weather.
He wrote on social media: ‘One person died from a falling tree that hit an electric power line.’
Meanwhile more than 100 flights have been delayed and children have been kept home from school as a result of the snowfall, which is 20 per cent higher than usual.
The emergency services also urged drivers to use public transport unless there was ‘extreme need’ due to the risk of snowdrifts and black ice.
Deputy mayor Pyotr Biryukov said: ‘This is the first time in 100 years there’s been such a quantity of snow.’
Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency dubbed the conditions a ‘snowy apocalypse.’
Workers remove snow on the road in front of a Russian Orthodox church in Moscow
The sheer weight of snow on trees in the city have caused 2,000 to fall – with 100 over cars
Snow covers the picturesque domes of Saint Basil’s Cathedral at the red square in Moscow, Russia
Workers clear snow off a roof in Moscow after heavy falls in the Russian capital
‘In the first five days of February the monthly average (snowfall) was reached,’ Nadezhda Tochenova, the deputy head of Russia’s Hydrometcentre weather research centre said.
‘That’s an anomaly of course.’
A depth of snow of 21 inches was measured at one city weather station, Tochenova said, while denying reports that the snowfall was an all-time record.
In a city well accustomed to wintry weather, the heavy snowfall did not affect central heating or power supplies and public transport was largely running.