Cold Wave - 53 More Dead Overnight In Ukraine Alone - AFP

[hatrack]

A relentless Arctic weather front wreaked more havoc across a wide swath of eastern Europe Wednesday, killing 53 people overnight in Ukraine alone and severely disrupting transport networks in half a dozen countries.

Intemperate weather has even covered Athens's Acropolis in snow and frozen stretches of the eastern Danube running between Bulgaria and Romania.

The week-long deep freeze, forecast to last through Thursday, has claimed hundreds of lives from the Baltic nations and Russia in the north all the way down to Turkey and Greece, both semi-paralyzed by uninterrupted snowfall.

The 24-hour toll in Ukraine brings to 130 the number of weather-related deaths there since temperatures plunged into the minus 20s and minus 30s Celsius (minus 30s Fahrenheit). Ukraine's power grid has been tested to the limit, leading to record consumption of natural gas and, consequently, another row with neighbouring supplier Russia, which accused Kiev of using gas destined for its downstream European clients

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Arctic_Front_Maintains_Deadly_Grip_On_Europe.html

[JuniorPlankton]

1. Most of them probably got drunk and fell asleep outside

(I grew up in Ukraine and to me it seems a highly probable scenario.)

[hatrack]

2. Yeah, that's accounted for many of the cases in Russia & Ukraine

There's a huge floating population of homeless alcoholics in Kyiv, Moscow and dozens of other cities.