| Frigid weather sweeping Europe claims 85 lives November 25, 1998 BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- Frigid weather and snow storms sweeping through Europe claimed more lives Tuesday, bringing the death toll to at least 85 people since last week. Fourteen more deaths were reported Tuesday. Worst hit by the cold snap has been Poland, with 41 weather-related deaths, and Romania, with 30. France, Bulgaria and Italy also reported storm-related deaths. Romania's cold snap began Friday, and authorities reported nine more deaths Tuesday. The latest deaths included three people who lost control of their cars in icy conditions, said Col. Ioan Palalau of the national traffic police. One homeless man in a village near Romania's capital, Bucharest, died after he sought shelter in a garbage bin, and another froze to death in a streetcar. A man sweeping snow in the capital passed out and died, apparently because of the cold, and another man was found frozen to death in a Bucharest factory where he had apparently sought shelter. In the county of Tulcea in southeastern Romania, schools were closed due to unheated classrooms and roads made impassable by heavy snow. Blizzards swept across Romania's southeast Tuesday and temperatures plunged to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) before dawn. Dozens of villages had no electricity and 300 communities were without telephone lines, the Mediafax news agency reported. About 150 soldiers in bulldozers and other military vehicles were dispatched to help people trapped by the snow. Bucharest's emergency hospital reported treating more than 800 fractures caused by slippery terrain within the last 24 hours. In Bulgaria, 700 villages were without electricity Tuesday and 400 were without water after heavy snow knocked down power lines and caused outages at water pumping stations, officials said. Five passes in the Balkan Mountains were closed because of deep snow drifts. Bulgarian state radio reported dozens of schools in rural northeastern Bulgaria had suspended classes because of the snow.
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