The death toll in Central and Eastern Europe has mounted as plummeting temperatures claimed lives, especially among the poor and homeless, and disrupted road and rail transport.
 
In the Czech Republic, six people have died of exposure in the freezing cold.
 
Romania’s death toll was reported to be 22 by January 26 2010. Snowdrifts blocked roads, and dozens of passengers in the train from Bucharest to Ploiesti South were taken to hospital with hypothermia after the train was blocked for hours in the cold weather, Romania’s Realitatea television station said.
 
Romania has declared a gas supply state of emergency on bad weather, with gas supply to most companies suspended and thermal energy producers having to use alternative fuel, Bursa reported, quoted by Balkan Insight on January 26..
 
With 11 deaths in Poland in recent days, the country's winter death toll has passed 202. The weather forecast for Poland is for temperatures to plunge further below zero in the next few days.
 
Sub-zero temperatures brought in with the latest cold front claimed their first reported death in Istanbul on January 25 when a 65-year-old fisherman living on his boat died, Hurriyet said.
 
A cold snap paralysed Turkey at the start of the week, with heavy snowfalls blocking road access to thousands of villages, and severing power, gas and water supplies in Istanbul. Forecasts were for most parts of Turkey to see warmer temperatures from January 27 onwards.
 
In Ukraine, more than 250 people, many of them homeless, were reported to have died in the winter cold in the past four weeks. Barometers in several parts of Ukraine fell towards -30 degree Celsius on January 25.