Death toll rises as Europe remains locked in deep freeze
Temperatures as low as minus 36C crippled power grids, burst frozen water pipes and caused thousands of road accidents across a swath of eastern Europe from the Baltic states to Turkey, Greece and Italy.
In Greece, rescuers struggled to save the 16-man crew of a cargo ship stranded in heavy seas in the Aegean Sea.
The Arctic weather conditions are expected to affect much of central Europe at least through tomorrow.
Even as temperatures warmed slightly in Russia, where more than 60 people have died since the cold snap began last week, bone-chilling cold claimed 26 lives overnight Monday in neighbouring Ukraine, the health ministry said.
A total of 77 Ukrainians have died since temperatures plunged last week, and more than 400 have been hospitalised, most of them suffering from frostbite and various stages of hypothermia.
Several deaths were reported yesterday in Poland, where the toll stands at 39 since last Thursday, and 161 since the onset of winter. Six more fatalities were reported in Turkey, bringing the total for the week to 17.
In Romania, a 55-year-old man died of hypothermia yesterday morning, the 16th to succumb to cold in recent days, while in Germany the toll climbed to five when a 63-year-old man died in his unheated apartment in Senftenberg.
A neighbour found him slumped over a table in his kitchen, where the temperature was minus 15C.
In Estonia, three more deaths from cold were reported yesterday, while in neighbouring Latvia a country of only 2.3 million the toll climbed to 40 after six more died overnight.
In Estonia, blazes broke out in houses where desperately cold residents attempted to melt frozen pipes with open fires.
A passenger ferry from the western island of Vormsi to the mainland took nine hours to make a 30-minute crossing when the ship got stuck on Sunday in frozen waters on the Baltic Sea.
About 1,200 schools and 250 pre-schools were shut in Poland, with hundreds of others closed in Greece, Italy and Romania.
Flights in northeast Turkey have been cancelled, and the airport in the Black Sea town of Trabzon has been closed because of snow.
At least four airports were also closed in Greece. In Poland a number of public transport buses broke down, while trains were running late as rails cracked and electric cables snapped.
