Cold wave toll reaches 280
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BELGRADE, Serbia -- Subzero cold combined with snowstorms continued to claim lives across Europe, bringing the death toll to more than 280 by Sunday. Most of the victims were in Ukraine, where 30 more people died over the weekend.
The severe weather, with the temperature in Ukraine often falling to 30 degrees below zero, has killed at least 131 people there since the beginning of winter, most of them homeless.
In Poland, eight more people froze to death, bringing the toll to 53. In addition, there were at least six fatalities from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by faulty heating systems.
Though the temperature was somewhat more moderate in the Balkans, in Romania six people froze over the weekend, 34 in total during the cold snap.
Nine people died in Serbia, which was struggling to restore its infrastructure. Schools were canceled through the next week to reduce traffic jams and ease the strained power grid.
BEIJING -- In a fresh illustration of growing turmoil among ethnic Tibetans in Sichuan province, three livestock herders have set themselves on fire to protest what they saw as political and religious repression at the hands of the Chinese authorities.
The latest cases bring the total self-immolations by ethnic Tibetans over the past year to 19. They were also apparently the first by laypeople, rather than current or former members of the clergy, suggesting that self-immolation may be gaining popularity as a form of dissent. The self-immolations took place Friday in Seda County, once a center of Buddhist teaching, but reports did not surface until the weekend because the government had cut off Internet and telephone connections to the area, said Tsering Woeser, a Tibetan poet in Beijing.
First Published February 6, 2012 12:00 am
