#2
Eastern Europe digs out from snow as cold deaths climb
AFP
January 4, 2002

From the Baltics to the Balkans, eastern Europeans dug out from heavy snowfall that blanketed the region as plunging temperatures caused a spate of deaths from severe cold.

With southeastern Europe lashed by the most severe snowstorms in three decades, dozens of towns and villages in northeastern Bulgaria remained cut off Thursday by snowdrifts up to two metres (six feet) deep.

Several dozen Polish villages also remained completely cut off, while 180 towns in western Ukraine have remained without electricity since the New Year after heavy snowfall and severe winds created drifts three metres (nine feet) deep.

Skies cleared across much of eastern Europe Thursday, allowing road crews a chance to catch up after a week of intermittent snow, but temperatures plunged causing a number of deaths from cold.

Seven people were found dead from the cold in Turkey Wednesday, bringing the casualty toll from heavy snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures across most of the country since the weekend to at least 19, authorities said.

In Bulgaria a 67-year-old pensioner was found frozen to death in the snow near her home outside Burgas, while a tramp died sheltering near the entrance to a building, his feet wrapped only plastic bags.

In Moscow, authorities said 14 people had died from cold since New Year, including 10 overnight Wednesday, bringing the death toll in the Russian capital to 281 since the start of the winter, according to the Interfax news agency.

Polish police said a dozen people have died from cold since the start of the year, bringing the death toll since October to 221.

Two deaths from hypothermia were reported in the Latvian capital Riga over the holidays as temperatures plunged to minus 25 degrees Centigrade (minus 13 Fahrenheit).

Rescue workers also had their hands full in several countries on Thursday.

Twenty seven school children who spent 17 hours trapped in a bus under an avalanche in mountainous eastern Turkey were rescued, Anatolia news agency reported.

A snowplow managed to free on Thursday a train that got stuck Wednesday evening near the Bulgarian city of Silistra. The passengers were unharmed.

But some 60 tourists remained blocked for a fourth day in a mountain hotel near Veliko Tarnovo in central Bulgaria, civil defence authorities said.

Several dozen secondary roads in northern Romania remained impassable Thursday, with snow removal efforts hampered by wind gusts of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) per hour.

In the northern region of Iasi patients had to be taken to hospital by sleigh after ambulances could not reach homes.

In Turkey the people of Izmir on the Aegean, known for its temperate climate, woke up to their first snowflakes in half a decade, local reports said.

In the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the country's only subtropical city, palm branches were breaking from the weight of heavy snow, with traffic at a near standstill.

Some 6,000 residents of the city of Volkov near Saint Petersburg were living without heat after a pipe burst as the temperature sank to minus 25 degrees Centigrade (minus 13 Fahrenheit).

In the Czech Republic, school was cancelled until Monday in what the private TV station Nova termed "snow holidays".

To the west, many routes were impassable over the German border and icy conditions were responsible for a number of fatal road accidents particularly in the eastern region of Moravia, police announced.

Polish police appealed to drivers to travel only if necessary as many secondary roads remained impassable. They recommended drivers leave children at home and bring with them a shovel, sand, rope, hot beverages and a mobile phone.

About a quarter of Lithuanian secondary roads remained impassable on Thursday, with the army on alert to help rescue services if needed, the Baltic News Service reported.

BACK TO THE TOP    #187 CONTENTS    NEXT SECTION