Record low temperatures kill over 160 in Europe

Woman looks out of frozen bus in Ukraine: photo - EPA/Sergey Drozhenko

In Gronkow, near Nowy Tag in southern Poland, temperatures plunged to minus 38.5 degrees, according to a report by the RMF FM radio station, as the death toll in the country, last recorded at 29 people over the last seven days, is expected to rise.

In Ukraine, over 100 people, 75 percent of whom were homeless, have died due to the icy temperatures. Up to 2000 special shelters offering warm drinks and a place to get out of the Arctic weather have been set up.

In Romania, 22 people have frozen to death, in Latvia and Belarus, 10.

Police in Prague, Czech Republic say that a man died after he took off his clothes while drunk and went to sleep on a park bench.

"Although we expect harsh winters in this part of the world, this current freeze has come towards the end of a mild winter," Zlatko Kovac, representative of the Red Cross for Belarus and Ukraine has said.

In Poland, some schools have been forced to close - which the law allows if temperatures fall below minus 15 over two consecutive days - and broken water pipes are stretching the resources of the emergency services.

In Jadwisin in the capital Warsaw, residents were cut off from hot water and heating for several hours.

“Our teams are working around the clock in three shifts,” says Roman Bugaj, a spokesman for the Warsaw Municipal Water and Sewage Company.

Day time tempretures in Warsaw were around minus 24 degrees, Friday morning. (pg)