Deep freeze death toll rises to 48 as eastern Europe is battered by heavy snow

• Severe cold snap kills at least 48 people across region
• Ukraine: 18 die of hypothermia, 500 people seek medical help
• Poland: At least 10 people dead as cold reaches -26C
  
• Serbia: 3 dead and two missing; Romania: 4 people dead; Bulgaria: 1 dead
• Turkey: 200 flights cancelled after heavy snowfall
• Cold weather expected to last through the week
  

By Lee Moran
UPDATED: 18:35, 31 January 2012

Heavy snow and a severe cold snap have killed at least 48 people across central and eastern Europe.

Poland, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have all been hit by temperatures as low as -26C - causing schools to close, roads to be blocked and power cuts.

Residents have been urged to stay indoors as local authorities open up hundreds of emergency shelters in a bid to halt the rapidly escalating death toll.

Ukraine's Emergency Situations Ministry said 30 people died of hypothermia and nearly 500 people sought medical help for frostbites and hypothermia in the last week.

At least twelve of the dead were homeless people whose bodies were discovered on the streets. Temperatures in parts of Ukraine plunged to minus -16C during the day and -23C during the night.

Authorities opened 1,500 shelters to provide food and heat and shut down schools and nurseries.

At least 10 people froze to death in Poland as the cold reached -26C today.

Malgorzata Wozniak, a spokeswoman for Poland's Interior Ministry, said elderly people and the homeless were among the dead.

Police are now checking unheated empty buildings to corral the homeless into shelters. Until now, Poland had been having a mild winter with little snow and temperatures just below freezing.

In central Serbia, three people died and two more were missing and 14 municipalities were operating under emergency decrees.

Efforts to clear roads of snow were hampered by strong winds and dozens of towns faced power outages.

Police said one woman froze to death in a snowstorm in a central Serbian village, while two elderly men were found dead, one in the snow outside his home.

Further south, emergency crews are searching for two men in their 70s who are feared dead. In Romania, local media reported four people had died due to the frigid weather.

Hungry dogs and puppies near the Romanian capital of Bucharest got a helping hand after a dozen prison inmates shovelled snow to unblock paths to a stray dog shelter housing 300 dogs.

The strays had been frozen in after snowstorms and icy weather swept Romania. Bucharest is home to some 50,000 stray dogs.

In neighbouring Bulgaria, a 57-year-old man froze to death in a northwestern village and emergency decrees were declared in 25 of the country's 28 districts.

In the capital of Sofia, authorities handed out hot tea and placed homeless people in emergency shelters.

Strong winds also closed down Bulgaria's main Black Sea port of Varna, and a part of a major highway between Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece was closed after heavy snowfall.

Nearly 200 Turkish Airlines flights to and from Istanbul's Ataturk Airport were also cancelled as temperatures in parts of the country dropped to -25C.

In the Czech capital of Prague, city authorities worked to set up tents for an estimated 3,000 homeless people. Freezing temperatures also damaged train tracks, slowing railway traffic.

The cold snap is expected to continue throughout the week, with an established area of high pressure in Scandinavia and western Russia preventing mild air from southern Spain and northern Africa moving northwards.

Croatian meteorologist Zoran Vakula said: 'We are getting some "real" winter this week.'

Temperatures in Moscow, Russia, are not expected to get higher than -19C. The normal temperature at this time of year is -8C in the Russian capital.