Cold wave death toll hits 265
2006-01-12 10:09
Lucknow - Freezing temperatures and icy Himalayan winds have gripped northern parts of the Indian subcontinent and Nepal, killing at least nine people overnight, pushing the death toll from the cold spell to 265 across the region, say officials on Thursday.
Surendra Srivastava of police said that in Uttar Pradesh, the worst affected Indian state, five people froze to death overnight. Meteorology department officials forecasted warmer weather in the area for the next few days.
City officials had distributed blankets and arranged for bonfires at street corners in and around Lucknow. Thousands of poor and homeless people huddled around small wood fires to keep warm.
Schools had been ordered closed across northern India until the cold wave lifts.
Twelve people die
Srivastava said: "With last night's deaths, the toll of people succumbing to the cold has gone up to 142 in Uttar Pradesh."
Another 12 people had died from the cold in other parts of northern India for the last three weeks.
Temperatures fell to nearly freezing in some parts of northern India overnight, but were a few degrees warmer in cities like New Delhi.
Though India was famous for its brutally hot summers, temperatures fell sharply for a few weeks in January and February.
Poor people, particularly those living on the streets, were the worst hit by the drop in temperatures.
Himalayan kingdom
A government official Umesh Pokhrel said that in neighbouring Nepal, four people died on Wednesday in the town of Gaur, about 160km south of Katmandu, bringing the total to 14 deaths from the cold in the Himalayan kingdom this winter.
But, the cold wave appeared to be easing in Bangladesh, where no deaths from the cold were reported on Thursday. At least 50 people had died because of frigid temperatures in the country since the cold spell began.
In neighbouring Pakistan, at least 47 people had died of cold and pneumonia from a week of frigid weather in the country's remote northern Himalayan region.
The regional death toll didn't include areas hit by a giant October 8 earthquake that killed at least 87 000 people.
The World Health Organisation last week reported 18 cold-related deaths in the quake zone over the previous six weeks.
- AP