Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

‘Beast from the East’ keeps Europe in deep freeze

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PARIS: Countries across Europe shut schools and rushed to shelter homeless people on Wednesday as a deadly blast of Siberian weather dubbed the “Beast from the East” kept the mercury far below zero.


The death toll rose to at least 46 since last Friday as a 75-year-old Dutchman went out to skate in the western village of Hank, only for the ice to crack beneath his feet.


Three children and two adults also had to be rescued in similar incidents in the skating-mad Netherlands.


The victims of the brutal cold also include 18 people killed in Poland, six in the Czech Republic, five in Lithuania, four each in France and Slovakia, two each in Italy, Serbia and Romania and one in Slovenia.


Homeless people account for many of the dead, and cities across Europe have been racing to open emergency shelters to protect people sleeping rough.


In Germany, the national homeless association urged shelters to open during the day and not just at night.


“You can die of cold during the day too,” its chief Werena Rosenke warned. Authorities are also urging people to look out for elderly relatives and neighbours after a French woman in her nineties was found frozen to death outside her retirement home.


In Paris, some 50 regional lawmakers were to spend on Wednesday night on the streets to protest the “denial of dignity” suffered by those without roofs over their heads. And in the northern port of Calais, authorities were launching emergency plans to shelter migrants who camp out near the coast hoping to stow away on trucks bound for Britain. — AFP


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