Death toll tops 60 in European deep freeze

KIEV, Ukraine, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- Winter's icy grip on eastern Europe has tightened, with officials reporting the death toll has hit 60 amid unrelenting frigid temperatures and snow.

The Irish Times reported 60 deaths -- with Ukraine's Emergencies Ministry listing 30 fatalities, Poland at least 15 and the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Bosnia and Romania and Bulgaria accounting for other deaths.

The temperature reached minus-56 degrees F in Russia and bitter cold has also taken hold in Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria, Sky News reported Wednesday, with even Greece experiencing snow.

Euronews reported Tuesday Turkey had received nearly 8 inches of snow and it's been so cold in the Czech Republic train tracks have buckled and locomotives have broken down.

Sky News said a heavy snowstorm had closed the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey to large ships Tuesday.

"It has completely affected daily life in Istanbul," one man told the broadcaster. "No shops are open and there is no traffic."

Inmates from a prison near Bucharest, Romania, volunteered to dig out 300 dogs trapped in snowbound kennels, the news agency said.

Sky News reported most of the fatalities in Ukraine were homeless people who froze to death on the streets. The military set up makeshift shelters and more than 600 people were treated for frostbite and hypothermia, the British broadcaster said.

"I drank a bit, and slept on the bench, woke up in the night and couldn't feel my legs," one man in a hospital in the capital Kiev told Sky News.