Canal freezes in Berlin due to extreme cold winter

After extremely cold temperatures in Berlin, the main 10km Landswehrkanal canal which subdivides the city has frozen solid allowing many Berlin residents to walk on the ice. Berlin, Germany. 26/01/2010.

A reporter from the RBB Berlin station interviews a man asking him if he felt safe walking ontop of the ice. I later spoke to him and he told me he was walking home from his workplace in Treptow.

He walked over 5km home on the ice. He told me, however, to be careful under the bridges where the ice is not always so thick.

The Landwehrkanal is a 10 km (6 mi) long canal parallel to the Spree river in Berlin, Germany, built between 1845 and 1850 according to plans by Peter Joseph Lenné[1]. It connects the upper part of the Spree at the Osthafen (Eastern Harbour) in Friedrichshain with its lower part in Charlottenburg, flowing through Kreuzberg and Tiergarten.

Lenné designed a canal with sloped walls, an average width of 20 m (66 ft) at the surface and locks at both ends to control the water depth. In the course of two enlargements 1883-1890 and 1936-1941 it reached a breadth of 22 m (72 ft) and a depth of 2 m (7 ft). Today the waterway is mainly used by tourist boats and pleasure crafts. In Kreuzberg a long part of the Landwehrkanal is accompanied by the U1 line of the Berlin U-Bahn, which runs here as an elevated railway.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landwehrkanal