THE death toll from the vicious cold
snap across Europe has risen to more than 260, with hundreds having to
be rescued after a ferry caught in a snow storm hit a breakwater off
Italy.
Ukraine has suffered the heaviest toll with 122 deaths, including
many who froze to death in the streets as temperatures plunged to as low
as minus 38.1 degrees Celsius.
Airports were shut, flights and trains delayed, and highways gridlocked as emergency services raced to clear falling snow.
In Italy, the ferry Sharden hit a breakwater shortly after setting off from the port of Civitavecchia near Rome.
It
caused panic among the 262 passengers who feared a repeat of a cruise
ship tragedy in the area last month that is thought to have killed 32
people.
Coastguard spokesman Carnine Albano said the accident,
which tore a 25-metre hole in the ship's side above the waterline,
happened after the vessel was buffeted by a violent snow storm from the
north-east.
All passengers were evacuated and no injuries reported.
The
heaviest snowfall in 27 years in Rome caused the capital, better known
for its warm sunshine, to grind to a halt with taxis and buses unable to
navigate through the icy streets without snow chains.
Parts of the Venice lagoon also froze over.
Among
the cold-weather deaths in Italy was 46-year-old woman who died in
Avellino, near Naples in southern Italy, after a greenhouse roof laden
with snow collapsed on her.
A homeless man in his sixties of German origin was found dead, apparently of cold, in the central town of Castiglione del Lago.
These latest deaths brought the total in Italy to seven.
In
Poland, the death toll rose to 45 as temperatures plunged to minus 27C
in the north-east. In Romania, four more victims were found, bringing
the number of fatalities in the country to 28.
The cold snap has
also killed people in Bosnia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, the
Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia, France, Austria and Greece.
Snow
fell in Bosnia for the second straight day, paralysing traffic, with one
patient dying as an ambulance was unable to reach his village in the
south of the country.
Two people were found dead in Croatia on
Saturday, in the southern region near the Adriatic coast and the main
port Split where the snow has surprised inhabitants, Hina news agency
reported.
In Serbia, a man was found dead in the southern town of
Lebane as the authorities in 28 municipalities, mostly in remote
mountainous regions in the south and southwest, declared a state of
emergency.
Maric said some "60,000 people ... or 25,000
households, have been cut off by snow" with emergency services engaged
in clearing off the areas and bringing the necessities to the
population.
In tiny Montenegro, where one person was found frozen to death in a village, many hamlets in the mountainous north were cut off.
Rescuers
managed to evacuate 120 people, among them 31 school children from
neighbouring Albania on a field trip, Interior Minister Ivan Brajovic
said.
But as Europe huddled indoors for warmth, Russian gas giant
Gazprom said it could not satisfy western Europe's demand for more
energy.
"Gazprom at the moment cannot satisfy the additional
volumes that our Western European partners are requesting," the
company's deputy chairman Alexander Kruglov said at a meeting with Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin, according to Russian news agencies.
The freeze shut several airports in eastern and central Europe.
Further
west, London Heathrow, the world's busiest in terms of international
passenger traffic, cancelled 30 per cent of Sunday's flights as it
braced for heavy snow and freezing fog.
In the Netherlands, Amsterdam-Schiphol airport reported dozens of delays and cancellations.
In
France, snow fell from Lille in the north to Marseille in the south,
though the west of the country and the capital Paris were spared.
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