Europe’s cold spell claims 160 lives Friday, 03 February 2012 04:20

WARSAW: A cold snap kept Europe in its icy grip yesterday, pushing the death toll to 160 as countries from Italy to Ukraine struggled to cope with temperatures that plunged to record lows in some places.

Nine more people died in Poland overnight as temperatures hit minus 32 Celsius (minus 25.6 Fahrenheit) in the southwest, bringing the overall toll to 29 since the deep freeze began last week, national police said.

In Ukraine, tens of thousands of people have headed to shelters trying to escape the freeze that the emergencies ministry said has now killed 63 people.

Most of them literally froze to death on the street, with only a handful making it to hospital before succumbing to hypothermia, the ministry said.

Shivering and hungry, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have sought help in the more than 2,000 temporary shelters set up by the authorities to help the poor survive the fearsome spell of cold weather.

The shelters offer warmth and hot food in a country where temperatures fell to minus 33 degrees Celsius in the Carpathians in the west of the country and minus 27 in the capital Kiev.

“I am unemployed. I have somewhere to live but nothing to eat. I ate here and it was good -- bread with a slice of fat and an onion as well as porridge,” said Olexander Shemnikov, an out-of-work engineer after visiting a shelter in Kiev. In Romania, eight people died overnight because of the cold, bringing the overall toll to 22, the health ministry said. Schools remained closed in some parts of the country as temperatures reached minus 31 degrees Celsius.

In Bulgaria, where the mercury dipped to lows not seen in a century, at least 10 people have died, according to media. Authorities have not released official figures.

With parts of the Danube freezing, authorities moved some vessels to ports further away to protect them from the advancing ice.

And in the capital Sofia, some residents found their money frozen as automated teller machines stopped functioning, according to local media. AFP

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