India: Big freeze kills 131

Schools across northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state were ordered shut today as icy winds and bitter cold claimed eight more lives overnight, bringing the total from a spell of frigid weather to 131, officials said.

The schools will remain shut until January 14 “in view of the cold wave sweeping” Uttar Pradesh, said Kiranpal Singh, the state’s education minister.

Hundreds of homeless people huddled around bonfires lit by municipal authorities and volunteer groups in the state capital Lucknow. A total of 109 people have died in the state since the cold snap began in November, including eight people who froze to death overnight, said Avinash Mehrotra, a police spokesman in Lucknow.

“All those who died were homeless,” he said.

Temperatures in New Delhi plunged to a 70-year low of 0.2 degrees Celsius (32.4 degrees Fahrenheit) yesterday, the Meteorology Department said. Temperatures at this time of year are normally about 7 degrees Celsius (12.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher.

At least 15 other people have died of cold in northern Punjab and Haryana states since November, while another seven deaths have been reported in Jammu-Kashmir state, bringing India’s death toll to 131.

In neighbouring Nepal, at least three people died in Janakpur, 125 miles southeast of the capital, Katmandu, yesterday due to the cold, said Umesh Pokhrel, a government official. He had no information on how many people have died so far in the Himalayan kingdom.