Britain's capital cleared the soggy remnants of a paralysing snowstorm yesterday as businesses counted the multibillion-pound cost.

An estimated six million people skipped work Monday when the largest snowstorm to hit London in 18 years stopped bus and subway service, grounded airliners and hobbled businesses.

Cost to economy

The Federation of Small Businesses said the cost to Britain's economy through lost productivity could be as high as £3 billion (US$4.3 billion).

Transportation officials, business leaders and local authorities accused one another of failing to prepare for the long-predicted storm that crippled Britain's transport network by dropping more than four inches of snow in London overnight Sunday, and another four inches Monday.

"We can't change nature and if nature does this to us, we have a problem," said John Ransford, chief executive of Britain's Local Government Association, which represents the small district and town councils largely responsible for keeping roads and sidewalks clear.

Not enough plows

London Mayor Boris Johnson said many of the city's authorities simply didn't have enough snow ploughs to deal with the snowstorm. In the borough of Fulham and Hammersmith, the local authority said it had no ploughs and only two machines to salt roads.

The Association of British Insurers said car accidents on Britain's icy highways surged on Monday, with claims for damage up 30 per cent.

Most airports, bus routes and subway lines in London were working as normal, but more than 1,000 British schools remained closed and thousands of workers were staying home for a second day.

David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said few people raised in the freezing British winters of 1960s and 1970s could understand the failure to prepare.