Cold snap claims more lives in India

Near-freezing temperatures have killed more than two dozen people in northern India in recent days despite government efforts to distribute blankets and medicine to the poor, an official and a news report said today.

In worst-hit Uttar Pradesh state, at least 22 people – many of them homeless - died over the past three days, pushing the death toll from two weeks of cold weather to 63, Ram Mohan Srivastav, a top government official, said.