A freezing cold snap combined with snowstorms continued to claim lives across Europe, bringing the death toll to more than 280 by Sunday - most of the victims were in Ukraine, where another 30 people died over the weekend, as dpa reported. The severe weather, with the temperature in Ukraine often dipping to minus 30 degrees, has killed at least 131 people there, most of them homeless. More than 1,800 people in the former Soviet republic needed hospitalization because of exposure and 75,000 sought assistance in one of the 3,000 shelters providing warm food and beverages. In Poland eight more people froze to death, bringing the total to 53. In addition, there were at least six fatalities from carbon-monoxide poisoning caused by faulty heating systems. In the Baltic republic of Lithuania, the minus 30 degrees temperatures claimed three more lives. Though the temperature was somewhat more moderate in the Balkans, in Romania six people froze over the weekend - 34 in total during the cold snap. Multiple deaths were reported in recent days in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, France and Hungary, whilst a snowstorm shut down much of the former Yugoslavia. In Serbia, nine people died: three psychiatric patients who wandered out inadequately dressed, three homeless people and three elderly villagers who perished while trying to leave their homes on errands. Another person reported missing six days ago is assumed dead. Serbia was meanwhile struggling to restore its infrastucture. A nationwide state of emergency is being mulled and schools were canceled through the next week to reduce traffic jams and ease the strained power grid. The storm deposited up to two metres of snow in parts of Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro. At least three casualties were reported in Croatia from the weather on Saturday and Sunday and one in Montenegro, where a Russian man was found dead beside a road. In Berane, a town in the mountains, the roof of a sport gymnasium collapsed under the weight of the snow, but without any reported injuries. Roofs collapsing under the snow killed two people in separate incidents in Italy, where also a homeless man, from Ukraine, was found frozen near Rome.
