Serbia: 11,000 trapped in remote villages by snow

[February 02, 2012]  BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- At least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia's mountains, authorities announced Thursday, as the death toll from Eastern Europe's weeklong deep freeze rose to 114.

Those stranded live in some 6,500 homes in remote areas that cannot be reach due to icy, snow-clogged roads, emergency police official Predrag Maric said. Emergency crews were pressing hard to try to clear the snow and deliver badly needed supplies.

"We are trying everything to unblock the roads, since more snow and blizzards are expected in the coming days," Maric said.

Twenty more deaths from the cold were reported in Ukraine on Thursday, with nine more in Poland and one more each in Serbia and the Czech Republic. Officials said most of victims were homeless.

Temperatures across the region sank to minus 32.5 C (minus 26.5 F) in some areas. Parts of the Black Sea froze near the Romanian coastline and the rare snow fell on Croatian islands in the Adriatic Sea. In Bulgaria, 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago.

Polish government spokeswoman Malgorzata Wozniak said her country's victims were mostly homeless people under the influence of alcohol who had sought shelter in unheated buildings. Officials appealed to the public Thursday to quickly help anyone they saw in need.

In Ukraine, 63 people have perished from the cold in the last week. Nearly 950 others were hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite and over 2,000 heated tents have been set up with hot food for the homeless.

To the south, helicopters evacuated dozens of people from snow-blocked villages in Serbia and Bosnia this week and airlifted in food and medicine.

In central Serbia, choppers pulled out 12 people, including nine who went to a funeral but then could not get back over icy, snow-choked roads. Two more people froze to death in the snow and two others are missing, bringing that nation's death toll to five.

"The situation is dramatic, the snow is up to 5 meters (16 1/2 feet) high in some areas, you can only see rooftops," said Dr. Milorad Dramacanin, who participated in the helicopter evacuations.

Two helicopters on Wednesday rescued people and resupplied remote villages in northern Bosnia.

"We are trying to get through to several small villages, with each just a few elderly residents," said Bosnian rescue official Milimir Doder. "Altogether some 200-300 people are cut off. We are supplying them for the second day with food and medication."

In the small Bosnian hamlet of Han Kran on Mount Romanija, villagers waited for a helicopter at a flat spot that they had cleared of snow.

"We are barely coping. I live on my own -- it is a real struggle," said Radenka Jeftovic, an elderly woman wrapped in woolen scarfs and hugging a food package she received.

Goran Milat, a younger resident, complained that "the minuses are killing us."

"We are thankful for this help," he said. "But the snow did what it did and we are blocked here until spring."

Some Bosnian villages have had no electricity for days and crews were working around-the-clock trying to fix power lines.

Schools, nurseries and colleges across the region shut down, including one school in eastern Hungary that said it could not afford the high heating bills. The airport in Montenegro's capital of Podgorica was shut down for the second day Thursday because of heavy snowfall.

[Associated Press; By DUSAN STOJANOVIC and MONIKA SCISLOWSKA]

Monika Scislowska reported from Poland. Alison Mutler from Romania, Aida Cerkez from Bosnia, Pablo Gorondi from Hungary, Veselin Toskhov from Bulgaria and Jovana Gec from Serbia contributed to this report.

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