EDINBURGH, Scotland, March 31 (UPI) -- A spring storm left Scotland and Northern Ireland blanketed with snow and ice Wednesday, contributing to a bus crash that killed a 17-year-old girl.
In Northern Ireland, thousands of homes and businesses remained without power, The Times of London reported. Chief Inspector Steve Cargin of the Police Service of Northern Ireland helped move people from a County Derry shelter that lost electricity and described "really frightening conditions."
"Really strong gale-force winds, blizzards, snowdrifts of up to four feet," he said. "One of my officers said they saw this bump in the road and then realized it was actually a car. It was completely covered in snow. The conditions were just really unbelievable."
Police also rescued about 100 people, including school children in a bus, from vehicles stalled in Glenshane Pass between Belfast and Londonderry.
In Scotland, a bus carrying students from Lanark Grammar School on their annual Easter trip to an English amusement park skidded into a river before dawn, The Guardian reported. Natasha Paton, 17, was killed and 44 others required medical treatment.
Truck drivers let soaked children into their cabs to warm up and residents of the nearby village of Wiston helped the survivors. The village hall became a temporary shelter.
Susan Thornton, whose son is a student at the school, said she had kept him at home because of the dangerous conditions.
"I said to my son that I thought it best he didn't go on the trip, as I was concerned for his safety," she told The Scotsman. "I'm a driving instructor and you just wouldn't have been able to drive in that. Someone should have made a decision not to go ahead with that trip."
Also in Scotland, a train bound from Edinburgh to Inverness got stuck in a snowdrift Wednesday evening, the BBC reported. First Scotrail dispatched a rescue train that arrived early Thursday morning with food and blankets for the 100 passengers on the snowbound train. A company spokesman described them as "fed up and tired."
