The death toll in a cold-wave sweeping across northern India rose to 90 Thursday with the weather office forecasting the harsh conditions were likely to continue for a couple of days, news reports said. Most of the deaths occurred in Uttar Pradesh where at least 38 people were reported to have died over the past two weeks, while the rest of the deaths occurred in the eastern state of Jharkhand, northern Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir states, NDTV news channel and IANS news agency reported. Temperatures dipped to between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius in several places in India's northern plains with the coldest temperature of minus 2.2 degrees recorded in the Punjab town of Adampur. Jammu and Kashmir state capital Srinagar recorded a minimum temperature below minus seven degrees as water froze in taps and along the peripheries of the famous lakes in the picturesque city. The Indian Meteorological Department said night temperatures may rise marginally over the next four to five days, but the cold-wave conditions would continue over parts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajsthan states as well as Uttar Pradesh.
