Heavy snowfall has caused problems anew for certain regions of Serbia, the most difficult situation being in the region around the village of Crna Trava and the city of Vranje, southern Serbia, Goran Nikolic of the Interior Ministry's sector for emergency situations told Tanjug early on Wednesday.

The snow cover in the area has increased by at least 20 centimeters and in mountainous areas of Crna Trava and Vranje it is more than one and a half meters high, said Nikolic. Half of the Crna Trava municipality was blacked out during the night, with the lack of electricity also causing both cell and landline telephony signal loss.

The fresh snowfall blocked the road traffic there again, but crews are on the ground and are working hard to remove the snow from the roads, Nikolic said. The conditions regarding snow in other parts of Serbia are fairly decent, with most of the roads fully open for traffic, he said.

Nikolic pointed out that the region of the city of Leskovac and the town of Vlasotince also had a lot of snow, but the situation concerning electricity supply and road conditions was much better. Snow has been falling heavily in mountainous regions for days, with local roads leading to villages being partially blocked as they have not been cleared out of snow sufficiently, Nikolic pointed out.

However, major roads, such as the regional road leading to Mt. Kopaonik in the Brus municipality, are passable as crews are working persistently to keep it as clean as possible, Nikolic added. The road conditions in the region of Prijepolje is similar, with local roads toward high mountain areas still being cleaned up, while regional roads and highways are already clean for traffic, Nikolic added.