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Death Toll From Cold In Eastern Europe Rises


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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

Helicopters pluck stranded Europeans from snowbound villages, death toll from cold hits 83.

BELGRADE, Serbia — Rescue helicopters evacuated dozens of people from snow-blocked villages in Serbia and Bosnia and air-lifted in emergency food and medicine as a severe cold spell kept Eastern Europe in its icy grip.

The death toll from the cold rose to 83 on Wednesday and emergency crews worked overtime as temperatures sank to minus 32.5 C (minus 26.5 F) in some areas.

Parts of the Black Sea froze near the Romanian coastline and the rare snow fell on Croatian islands in the Adriatic Sea. In Bulgaria, 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago as four more people were reported dead from hypothermia.

In central Serbia, choppers pulled out 12 people, including nine who went to a funeral but then could not get back over icy, snow-choked roads. Two more people froze to death in the snow and two others are missing, bringing that nation’s death toll to five.

“The situation is dramatic, the snow is up to five meters (16 1/2 feet) high in some areas, you can only see rooftops,†said Dr. Milorad Dramacanin, who participated in the helicopter evacuations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraines-says-43-people-have-died-so-far-from-severe-cold-weather/2012/02/01/gIQA9R2AhQ_story.html

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Posted
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District
  • Location: Whaley Bridge - Peak District

The situation only looks to get worse before it gets better, I have been hearing of trains being stranded along the lines because the wheels literally began sticking with the cold and passengers endured overnight waits in the carriages until help came. 11,000 trapped in various communities within Eastern Europe (that's the ones with communications to the outside world) as there are many ski resorts within the region. Snow Forecast shows unprecidented amounts of snow yet to fall in the coming days ON TOP of what has already fallen. http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Jahorina/map

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Posted
  • Location: in south suburbs of Paris
  • Location: in south suburbs of Paris

Fear for France too as the cold spell does not seem to end but goes on next week here.Fear most for the homeless although Authorities are working on it to help them but certainly not enough.

I don't know if it is the same as heat: a couple of days of heat may be ok but the longer it gets, the stronger effects on the fragiles and eldery

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Posted
  • Location: Camborne
  • Location: Camborne

The death toll in the bitter weather in eastern Europe is still rising. Five people have died in France including a 12-year old boy who succumbed to hypothermia after falling into a frozen pond.

Kiev, Ukraine (CNN) -- Even bundled up in a purple jacket and light blue turtleneck sweater, warming herself in a thick canvas emergency tent heated by a stove, the young Ukrainian woman feels the bitter chill.

"It is very cold," she says. "The frost is very strong. It's very slippery out there."

But she is one of the lucky ones, taking refuge from the brutal winter pummeling eastern Europe in a temporary shelter put up by the Ukrainian government.

"Here it's warm and there's food and drink," she says.

"It's very important, especially for people like us in this unfortunate situation," said another man taking refuge in the shelter.

At least 250 people have already died across the region during the cold snap, with 135 of them in Ukraine

People skate on a frozen pond in Prague on February 6, 2012. Meteorologists this morning measured minus 39.4 degrees Celsius, the coldest temperature of this winter, in Kvilda village, in the South Bohemian Sumava mountains.

120207101647-winter-snap-prague-horizontal-gallery.jpg

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/07/world/europe/europe-cold-snap/index.html

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Europe cold snap death toll tops 650 as 100-car pile-up is blamed on snow

More than 650 people have died during a record-breaking cold snap in Eastern Europe, as officials in the Czech Republic blamed two massive car crashes on blinding snow.

Since the end of January, the region has been pummeled by the deep freeze, which has brought the heaviest blizzards in recent memory. Tens of thousands have been trapped in often-freezing homes and villages by walls of snow and unpassable roads, and officials have struggled to reach out to the vulnerable with emergency food airlifts. Authorities in Russia and Ukraine alone reported Wednesday that more than 300 people have died in the bitter cold.

About 100 damaged cars blocked a major highway in the Czech Republic connecting the capital, Prague, with the eastern part of the country and Slovakia. It is not clear if there were any fatalities. Seven people were injured in two separate accidents, authorities said. Some 40 cars crashed before midday Wednesday during a heavy snowstorm 188 miles east of Prague, injuring two people. Dozens of vehicles, including a bus, were involved in a separate crash southeast of Prague, which injured five, according to Czech public CT24 television. Authorities in Russia said 205 people have died this year in the frigid cold, while Ukraine has had 112 cold fatalities and Poland had 107. Seven people have died in Romania in the past 24 hours, bringing the total there to 86 deaths. In Lithuania, there have been 23 deaths. Deaths were also reported in Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia.

In hard-hit Romania, some 23,000 people remain isolated in 225 eastern communities where more than one week of heavy snow has blocked roads and wreaked havoc on the rail network. Residents were worried that their houses could collapse under the heavy snow as authorities struggled to bring them food, water, medicine and wood. A flight instructor flew his homemade powered parachute - a motorised vehicle that flies at low altitude - making several 45 minute-trips to deliver bread and canned food to people who have been cut off for days. A five-month-old girl with severe pneumonia was taken to a hospital early Wednesday by sled and an army vehicle after authorities struggled for six hours to reach her. Romanian farmers - faced with up to 15 feet of snow in some areas this week - are concerned about their sheep, goats, horses and cows. One farmer said he dug his pigs out of the snow and brought them into his home.

http://www.telegraph...ed-on-snow.html

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Further across and 40 people, most of them children have died in the extreme Afghanistan cold spell:

Dozens of children die in Afghanistan cold

Heaviest snowfall and coldest winter for 15 years claims the lives of more than 40 people, most of them children

More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan's coldest winter in years. The government has recorded 41 deaths from freezing in three provinces Kabul, Ghor and Badakhshan, said health ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar. All but three or four of those deaths were children, he said. Twenty-four were in the capital, Kabul, mostly in camps for people who have fled fighting elsewhere in the country. Kabul has been experiencing its worst cold snap and heaviest snowfall in 15 years, according to the national weather centre. It said the weather was expected to improve by the end of the week.

Heavy snowfall in Day Kundi province caused an avalanche late on Sunday in the Sang-i-Takht district that damaged dozens of homes and shops. The avalanche caused no injuries, said Nasrullah Sadiqizada, a member of parliament from the central province. The hardest hit have been people living in tents in a number of camps around the capital. The deaths in these camps, so close to the offices of international organisations overseeing billions of dollars in aid to the country, have shocked many in Kabul. The United Nations and the US aid agency have started distributing extra blankets, tarpaulins and fuel to people living in 40 camps throughout the city, the US embassy said in a statement last week. Most of those in the camps have fled from Helmand and Kunduz provinces, though some are Afghans who have returned from years living in Iran and Pakistan to find themselves homeless, the statement said.

Nato also delivered an estimated 1,000 blankets, coats, socks, mittens and hats to a refugee camp in Kabul. The coalition said it was planning additional delivers within the next week. Kargar said the ministry was establishing mobile clinics to try to get help out to people suffering in the cold.

The cold spell has also caused a spike in the price of gas and wood, the main fuel used by the city's five million or so residents to heat their homes. Heavy snows also damaged high-tension wires coming into the capital, causing sporadic blackouts in large swaths of Kabul. About 75% of the city has electricity. Kabul city hall said the capital's markets have supplies to last out the bad weather and there was no shortage of firewood or food. Kabul Kahid Mohammad, director of Kabul markets, said main highways leading into the city were clear.

Kabul airport was also operating, officials said, although there were delays at times due to poor visibility because of the snowfall

http://www.guardian....fghanistan-cold

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