Two school buses crash in Wokingham as arctic weather continues to sweep UK | UK weather

Two school buses have crashed on icy roads as Arctic weather conditions continue to cause widespread disruption and parts of the country brace for up to 30cm of snow.

Nine children and nine adults suffered minor injuries when a school bus and a Reading bus collided on icy roads in Wokingham on Wednesday.

An adult and a child were taken to the Royal Berkshire hospital for further treatment, while another school bus skidded on black ice and crashed into a ditch in Kent. Police said no one was injured in the incident.

The Met Office yellow warning for snow and ice has been extended until midday on Thursday for Scotland and the north of England, before Storm Goretti is expected to bring heavy snow later in the week.

Approximately 400 homes in the north of Scotland have been restored to power after morning outages due to heavy snowfall, which blocked access to many rural areas, disrupted travel and left hundreds of schools closed.

After Aberdeenshire council declared a major incident on Tuesday, severe weather conditions eased by the end of Wednesday, allowing recovery efforts to begin in earnest.

The Scottish government said on Wednesday evening that road clearing work across the transport network was progressing well. Scotland’s main road network is open, but most local roads are passable with caution. All rail routes are now open except the Far North between Invergordon and Wick or Thurso, which is expected to open later today. All Highland and Islands airports are also open with no reported problems and ferry services are operating as normal.

More than 400 schools in Aberdeenshire, Moray Orkney and Shetland were closed for a third day, while pupils in the Highlands received an extra day off due to return from holiday on Wednesday; A yellow warning for snow and ice was in place all day in northern Scotland, with people there told to expect another 5-10cm of snow.

The Met Office said temperatures were forecast to fall as low as -6C in rural parts of Scotland and fall just below freezing across a wider area overnight.

Meanwhile, the rest of the UK is bracing for more stormy weather, with Met Office chief forecaster Neil Armstrong describing Storm Goretti, bringing heavy rain, strong winds and snow from Thursday, as a “multi-hazard event”.

Armstrong said 5-10cm of snow was likely to fall in Wales and the Midlands, with the potential for 15-25cm in some places and up to 30cm locally.

The Met Office said strong winds of 50-60 mph will affect south-western areas on Thursday afternoon and evening, with gusts of 60-70 mph affecting exposed hills and coasts.

A yellow snow warning has been issued for much of England and large parts of Wales and will be in force from 6pm on Thursday until noon on Friday.

The Met Office has also issued a yellow warning for heavy snowfall covering parts of Wales, the Midlands and South Yorkshire from Thursday evening until Friday.

Forecasters said Goretti could mean delays or cancellations of trains and planes, rural communities could be disconnected, and power outages or mobile signal outages were also likely.

The warning, which comes into force at 8pm on Thursday and ends at 9am on Friday, extends from Sheffield in the north to Leicester and across much of the West Midlands and Wales.

An amber wind warning from 5pm to 11pm on Thursday was also issued for parts of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, with forecasters warning of winds of 80-90mph in “exposed areas”.

A yellow rain warning has been issued in eastern England from 18:00 on Thursday until 21:00 on Friday, and in West Wales from Thursday afternoon until 10:00 on Friday.

The government said the latest drop in temperatures had triggered cold weather payments for hundreds of thousands of households to help elderly and vulnerable people with heating costs. Eligible households will automatically be paid £25 when temperatures are recorded or forecast to be at or below zero degrees for seven consecutive days.

The UK Health Safety Agency has extended its yellow cold health warnings for England, which will continue until Sunday, as an early warning that adverse temperatures could affect health and wellbeing.