Tuesday, February 14, 2012

215 Russians die in cold snap; well over 600 in Europe

Terra Daily via AFP: Some 215 Russians have died this year in a prolonged period of abnormally cold winter weather, the health ministry said Monday as the overall death toll for Europe rose to well over 600. Heavy snow continued to fall on Monday in Romania and Bulgaria, but the cold snap that froze much of Europe for the past two weeks began to ease in the west of the continent.

In Russia, 215 people died and 5,546 people suffered from hypothermia and frostbite, including 154 children, between January 1 and February 13, the ministry said in a statement. While accustomed to frosty winters, Russia has seen 20 days of unusually cold weather, with the average temperature falling 7 to 14 degrees Celsius below average, the state weather service said.

In Moscow, the temperature was minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus four Fahrenheit) on Monday afternoon, the state weather service said. While Russian apartment blocks are generally well heated, the homeless are particularly at risk....

A Moscow winter in 2007, shot by Andrey, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

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