Another 5 die of cold in India
2006-01-02 13:28
Biswajeet Banerjee
Lucknow, India - Five more people have died in a cold snap in northern India, bringing the death toll from eight weeks of unusually chilly weather to 82, officials said on Monday.
The latest deaths occurred since Sunday in Uttar Pradesh state, said Surendra Srivastava, a state government spokesperson.
"The dead were homeless, living in the open," he said.
The cold weather has been made worse by chilly winds, and many of the victims were poor people forced to sleep outside or in public places like railway stations and parks.
Nighttime temperatures dropped to 5°C on Sunday night, said RK Verma, director of the state's meteorology department, adding that temperatures could go even lower in some parts of the state.
The deaths come despite efforts by the state government to move homeless people to shelters.
The latest victims included a man whose body was found near bus stand on Sunday in Srawasti, a village 230km southeast of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state, Srivastava said.
The other deaths were reported in the Sultanpur, Basti, Allahabad and Bahraich districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh, he said.
Cold-related deaths are an annual occurrence in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state with nearly 180 million people. More than 400 people died from the cold last year.
Meanwhile, heavy rains lashed the Tanghdar and Uri districts of Indian-held Kashmir, where nearly 100 000 people are living in tents and tin sheds since a massive earthquake hit the region on October 8.
The magnitude-7.6 temblor killed 1 360 people in the Indian portion of Kashmir. Another 87 000 people were killed and 3.5 million left homeless on the Pakistani side.
Also on Monday, heavy snows disrupted power and blocked roads between Srinagar and Jammu, the summer and winter capitals of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, said Basharat Dhar, a top government administrator.
- SAPA