Dozens freeze to death after temperatures plunge to -27C

As many as 30 people have died in The Ukraine while at least ten have died in Poland, three in Romania and one in Bulgaria. Hundreds of people have been hospitalised with hypothermia and the authorities have warned people to stay indoors.

The death toll has highlighted the dangers facing the homeless in Eastern European countries, with some commentators saying the region still suffers from a punitive attitude to homeless people and alcoholics – a hangover from the soviet era.

Ukraine has been among the hardest hit countries. In one village in the Cherkasy region a 44-year-old alcoholic fell asleep on the porch of her house and froze to death, said Olena Didyuk, spokeswoman for the emergency situations ministry.

Ukrainian authorities have set up hundreds of “heating centres” across the country – large green or beige tents – in which the homeless can get warm and are offered sandwiches, boiled potatoes, hog fat (a traditional Ukrainian dish), hot tea and coffee.

Still, more than 540 people have been hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite, Ukrainian health officials said. Ukraine's 1+1 channel broadcast footage of a man being treated for frostbite in his toes, which had turned completely black.

“I drank and fell asleep on the bench. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't feel my feet,” the unidentified man said from a hospital bed.

Hospitals were instructed to refrain from discharging homeless patients even if treatment was finished to save them from the cold, said Svitlana Tikhonenko, spokeswoman for the health ministry. Those measures helped save some lives, she said. Two years ago, 47 people perished over a similar time period during a cold wave.

Some experts suggested that the high death toll from the cold is linked to authorities’ unwillingness and incompetence in dealing with the homeless.

Pavlo Rozenko, an expert on social policy with the Kiev-based Razumkov Center, said that Ukrainian authorities suffer from the Soviet legacy of viewing the homeless as alcoholics, drug addicts who need to be punished and locked away from society instead of helped.

“The country doesn't know yet how to take care of its homeless,” Mr Rozenko said.

In Poland, five people died of hypothermia in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll from the cold to 15 in the last four days, the national police said.

Temperatures yesterday sank to -27C (-17 F) in the southeastern Polish city of Ustrzyki Gorne – and forecasts predicted temperatures down to -29C in the region overnight.

In Romania, two people died in the past 24 hours due to the cold weather, the health ministry said yesterday, bringing the total to eight since the cold spell began last week. Temperatures plunged to -20C overnight in Bucharest.

In Russia, one person died of the cold in Moscow, where temperatures fell to -21C, the city’s health department said. The Russian emergencies ministry is not reporting deaths across the country yet. In the Czech capital 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 weather 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.”