NNA - Flights were suspended for a second day at Istanbul Airport and private vehicles were barred from city streets on Tuesday, as heavy snowfall snarled traffic and left people stranded in Turkey's biggest city and across the country.

Snowfall began late last week and picked up in recent days in the city of 16 million people. Footage from the airport, among the world's largest, showed runways covered in a thick blanket of snow with aircraft and vehicles barely visible.

Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya took the rare step of banning private cars until 1000 GMT (1 p.m. local) as emergency teams cleaned up streets, while many public workers were granted administrative leave to keep commutes to a minimum.

A video posted on social media showed a man skiing through city streets late on Monday, with people waving as he passed. Far away in Turkey's south, snow fell on the beaches of the resort city of Antalya for the first time in 29 years.—Reuters 

============R.H.