Worst on the way for snow-hit Eastern Europe
Heavy snowfall across
eastern Europe cut off hundreds of villages today and rescue teams struggled to
evacuate people in southern Bulgaria where rain and melting snow had
caused a dam wall to break, flooding an entire village. A river dike also broke
under intense water pressure near Kapitan Andreevo at the border with Turkey, officials said. The cold snap has
killed hundreds of people across Europe and temperatures in some countries plummeted
to nearly minus 40C (minus 40F).Officials today warned of flooding when
temperatures rise and snow melts. Around 146 towns and villages in Romania were isolated with no road or train
connections because of blizzards. Up to 174 villages had no electricity, said
Alin Maghiar, spokesman for Romania's emergency department. Electricity
was also cut off to 300 towns and villages in Bulgaria, roads were closed and several
border checkpoints with Romania and Turkey were shut, the Interior Ministry said.
The ministry said more heavy snowfall was expected. Melting snow had caused a
dam wall to break and flood an entire village in southern Bulgaria on Monday. Four people drowned and
more than 50 were evacuated. Four more people died when their cars were swept
away by high waters.” It was terrifying," Iliyan Todorov from the village
of Biser told Trud daily. "We were warned that the tsunami was coming only
five minutes before the wave came...We survived by a miracle".European
Commissioner for Crisis Response Kristalina Georgieva said "the worst is
yet to come" after visiting Biser."The next two weeks may be really
hard. The warmer weather will cause melting of the snow and the situation will
most probably worsen," private broadcaster bTV quoted her as saying. In
the worst affected country, Ukraine, 135 people were confirmed dead up to
Monday and forecasters said bitter temperatures, as low as minus 30 Celsius
(minus 22 Fahrenheit), would continue until at least February 15.The Black Sea
ports of Varna and Burgas have been closed due to strong winds and Romania's
main port of Constanta and other smaller ports were also shut down today.
Authorities in Serbia said they were preparing to use
explosives to break ice on the rivers Ibar and Danube.” An ice cap half a metre deep has
formed on the Ibar near Kraljevo and there is a real danger that it could cause
the river to overflow into the city," said Predrag Maric, head of the
Interior Ministry's emergencies department.He said 100 km of the Danube were
freezing over and that it would also be mined.Eleven people have died so far
from the cold and snow in Serbia, with the latest victims a 62-year-old man
found dead a kilometre from his home near Arilje in western Serbia and a woman
killed by falling ice in the capital Belgrade. Serbian power provider TENT,
which provides more than 60% of the country's electricity, said it was managing
to maintain supplies but was working at full capacity in "extreme" conditions.
To the south in Albania, the Kukes Lake on the border with Kosovo -
supplying a hydropower plant at Fierze - was frozen over for the first time in
more than a decade, putting more pressure on already strained power supplies.
The cold weather has increased demand for gas in many European countries. Italy took emergency measures on Monday
to deal with what it called critical shortages of Russian gas. Supplies to
other members of the European Union mostly improved at the weekend but remained
below normal. Russia, which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas, reduced westward
flows through pipelines across Ukraine last week citing greater domestic
demand because of the extreme weather.
