Freezing temperatures in Russia have so far this season cost the lives of dozens of people and sent around 1,200 others to hospital due to frostbite, dpa cited Russian media as reporting Monday. According to dpa, the region around Moscow experienced its coldest night this winter, hitting minus 32 degrees Celsius in the village of Cherusti just east of the capital city, according to the Itar Tass news agency. On Sunday alone, 7 people including one children died from exposure. Experts however believe there would be a high number of unreported cases, specifically among homeless persons without access to warmth or emergency quarters. Due to the extreme temperatures school officials have allowed parents to decide whether to send their children to classes, with absences not counted as truancy. Problems also struck the country's eastern regions, where temperatures fell to minus 40 degrees. The Civil Defence Ministry sent 60 ovens by air to the south Sibirian republic of Tuva, where a local power plant failed. More than 1,000 people were without electricity in the village of Khovu-Aksy, and around 300 had to move into emergency shelters. The winter weather also affected the country's agriculture, with five regions seeing as much as a third of their winter grain lost, said Deputy Premier Arkady Dvorkovich, adding that nationwide, the losses on average equalled about 8-9 per cent of the grain sowed in the previous year.
