Over 300 killed by European cold snap
According to the international news agencies, Ukraine and Poland take the lead as the hardest-hit countries. Yesterday, melting snow caused a dam wall to break and flood an entire village in Bulgaria.
Snowstorms lashed Bulgaria today, a day after eight people drowned in raging rivers and the icy waters from the broken dam, officials said.
The cold snap has killed over 300 people of people in Europe. Nine died over the past days in Poland, bringing the total to 62 since the end of January. Temperatures fell to minus 24 Celsius at night in northeastern parts of the country.
In Croatia's Dalmatia region, more than 100 villages were cut off by snow in the hinterland of the Adriatic coast, the emergency service centre .
Ten people have died in Serbia so far, Montenegro reported its second death and Croatia said four people had died. In Serbia, where 11,000 people remain cut off and a state of emergency has been declared, temperatures were forecast to stay below zero until mid-February.
Bosnia was paralysed as snow block several cities. Helicopters were delivering baby food and aid packages to isolated villages in eastern parts. Farmers were having problems feeding cattle and the president of Bosnia's farmers association, Vladimir Usorac, said milk production has dropped by 15 to 30 percent in the country.
"People are trying to get through and feed the cattle. It's very difficult because of 2-metre snow and even 5-metre snow drifts so there is no access to cattle feed," he said.
Bosnia recorded yesterday its eighth victim, after an 87-year- old woman died of hypothermia.
At least 20 people have died in the Czech Republic, after two homeless people were reported dead overnight. A burst pipe temporarily shut down an important western rail corridor between Prague and the German border town of Cheb.
The cold weather has increased demand for gas, and the European Commission said yesterday Bulgaria, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Greece were now receiving normal import levels, while supplies to Romania, Germany and Italy were increasing, but were not yet fully restored.
"It has become better over the weekend. We are in close contact with the member states," EU energy spokeswoman Marlene Holzner told a regular briefing.
The Commission says the situation does not constitute a crisis, with countries being able to meet their needs using storage facilities and other market measures.
In Italy, where demand reached all-time highs following a sixth straight day of curtailed supply from Russia, Italian Industry Minister Corrado Passera described the situation as "critical".
Russia's Gazprom said on Saturday it had brought supplies to European countries back to normal after lowering them "for a few days", but was unable to meet increased demand.
Unlike previous politically sensitive cutoffs of Russian gas, the six-day long reduction in supply to Europe stems from cold weather in Russia that has increased its domestic demand.
Gas supplies to the European Union from Russia improved at the weekend but have not fully recovered, the European Commission said, as Italy convened a crisis committee to handle what it called critical shortages of Russian gas.
COMMENTS >
