LONDON - The worst February cold spell Europe has seen in decades may last
until the end of the month, leading meteorologists said, raising the prospect
of further deaths and an extended spike in European spot gas prices.
"We do have higher confidence in a change by mid-February, but not to milder
weather," Leon Brown, a meteorologist at The Weather Channel in Britain, told
Reuters.
"February will probably remain a cold month right to the end."
The cold and heavy snowfall has killed hundreds of people across Europe. The
temperature in some eastern countries has plummeted to nearly minus 40 degrees
Celsius.
More than 130 villages remained without electricity in Bulgaria on Wednesday
and the army was delivering food and medicines, the Defence Ministry said.
Bulgaria declared Wednesday a day of mourning for eight people who died after
melting snow caused a dam to burst, flooding an entire village. Two people are
missing.
The European Union's crisis response chief Kristalina Georgieva said the worst
of the flooding was yet to come.
In Bosnia, authorities reported five more deaths from the cold and snow on
Wednesday, taking the total to 13.
In Serbia, where 13 people have died and 70,000 are cut off by snow,
authorities urged people to remove icicles from roofs after a woman in Belgrade
was killed by falling ice.
An energy official in Serbia said while demand for electricity had soared, ice
was hampering production in some hydro-power plants and coal trains were
struggling to run.
