More Than 70 Die Across Europe Due To Cold Weather
MEP: At least 77 people have lost their lives in Europe as heavy snow further blankets eastern European countries, where many refugees are living in already poor conditions.
According to authorities, the icy temperatures continue to grip much of Europe as the death toll was just 33 in past two days.
The extreme winter weather over a wide expanse of land from the Baltic states and Poland southward to the Mediterranean Sea left villages cut off, caused power and water outages, froze rivers and lakes, grounded flights and led to widespread road accidents, the Associated Press reported.
The last winter in Poland was unusually mild but claimed 79 lives in the nation of 38 million, compared to 78 in 2013-2014 and 177 in 2012-2013.
Ten people died of cold in Poland on Sunday. The bodies of three migrants, two Iraqi and one Somali, were found near the Turkish-Bulgarian border.
Greece, which is home to large numbers of refugees, said that it had sent a ship to the island of Lesbos to house some 500 asylum seekers. The move came after rights groups put Athens under fire for keeping the refugees in snow-covered tents and sub-zero temperatures at campsites.
In Serbia, all river transport is suspended on the Danube.
The weather in Ireland is forecast to turn wintry from Wednesday through to Saturday.
Relief is in sight for many. The dangerous cold will linger across most of eastern Europe through the middle of the week before temperatures slowly moderate back closer to normal by the weekend, AccuWeather predicted.
Meanwhile, snow fell for the first time in 30 years Tuesday in the Albanian coastal city of Saranda, according to EUStorm, a European weather site.
Amnesty International has launched an online petition calling on European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to urge Athens to “urgently” move the refugees from Greek islands to the mainland, warning him that some of the refugees “are now at risk of freezing to death.”
The UK-based rights group also said that these refugees have been “held hostage” in dire conditions in Greece because of the European Union’s “inhumane and dysfunctional policies.”
