Seven people died from cold in Moscow at the weekend, bringing to 109 the death toll from winter weather this season, Interfax news agency reported yesterday.
In Poland, a police spokesman yesterday reported a dozen deaths from cold weather over the holiday weekend. One of the dead was a homeless man, who died on a railway platform after inspectors forced him to leave a train because he had no ticket.
Most of the dead in Poland were homeless or had fallen asleep outdoors after drinking. Last year 225 people died from the cold in Poland.
Interfax quoted Moscow ambulance services as saying that 118 people were hospitalised over the weekend suffering from hypothermia and four suffering from frostbite. Last year, 121 died from the cold in the Russian capital.
More surprisingly, perhaps, at least 33 people have died in Thailand in the last week as unusually cold weather has swept down from China and Mongolia, Thai officials said yesterday.
"Official figures are not yet available but initial reports show at least 33 Thais have already died from cold-related causes in the past five days," a social welfare spokesperson said.
Twenty-two people were believed to have died from cold while 11 others either died from inhalation of carbon dioxide or were burned to death by stoves, the social welfare department official said. Thousands of poor communities in rural areas lack blankets and warm clothes to cope with the cold.
The temperature in the capital, Bangkok, early on Monday morning was 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 degrees Fahrenheit), down from about 28 degrees Celsius a week ago.
The lowest temperature ever recorded in Bangkok was 10 degrees Celsius in 1975, a department official told Reuters.
Northern Thailand is usually cool in the winter months of December and January, but it is normally closer to 10 degrees Celsius.