Severe cold has killed more than 50 people in Eastern Europe, officials said on Thursday, where temperatures have plummeted to below -30 degrees Celsius. Ukraine reported 20 more deaths, bringing the death toll from the cold snap to 63. The Ministry of Emergency Situations said 900 people were hospitalized and 2,000 sought shelter in government centers. To the West, in Poland, 9 more cold-related deaths occurred, two of them from carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty heating system, police said. The death toll rose to 29 in the past week. The cold also killed three people in the Baltic region, including a homeless man found in an abandoned house in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda. In the Czech Republic, two homeless people froze to death: one was found in an improvised shelter in Prague and the other in a park in Plzen. Three people were also killed in Hungary. Eight people froze to death in Romania, bringing the death toll to 22, the Health Ministry said. In Bulgaria, where eight people were killed earlier this week, the cold killed two more on Wednesday. The freezing weather conditions forced the closure of around 1,000 schools. One person was killed and another was missing in Serbia. The area of Sjenica, which is home to 11,000 people, was inaccessible because roads were blocked by metres of snow, dpa reported.
