Severe frost has killed 30 people in Poland this month bringing the total death toll to above 200 this winter, police said today.
Uniformed services were patrolling allotment gardens and other popular locations distributing warm meals and urging homeless people to move to public dormitories as temperatures dipped to -20 degrees.
"We have noted 30 such cases...these people died from the cold," said police spokesman Krzysztof Hajdas.
"We have had 202 deaths due to freezing weather conditions. Most of these casualties occurred in December with over 130 deaths," he said.
Bins with glowing coal also appeared in the streets of Warsaw for people to warm themselves up while waiting at bus stops and some trains were delayed in different parts of the country as frost buckled the rails.