Cold weather has claimed 178 lives in Poland since October, nearly 60 per cent higher than the death toll last winter, a police spokesman said yesterday.
Snowfall over the past week and temperatures plunging to minus 10 degrees have added to the number of victims, the spokesman said. Last winter 112 people died from the cold, with most victims men aged 40-60 who had abused alcohol.
Police pick up about 200 individuals from the streets every day and take them to detoxification centres. About one quarter of victims are homeless.
Meanwhile intense cold killed three people in Bulgaria just days after a state of emergency was declared in the north-east after the worst snowfall in 30 years, the civil defence department said.
In the province of Shumen, the frozen body of a 28-year-old man was discovered near his home, while two other men, aged 57 and 59, were found dead in their homes, which lacked heating.
The snowfalls, which began on Monday and blocked road traffic throughout Bulgaria, are the heaviest in 30 years, according to meteorologists.
By Thursday, 110 cms (more than 3 1/2 foot) of snow had fallen in the Rhodopes mountain, southern Bulgaria, where five villages remained cut off from the outside world. Dozens of villages remain without electricity throughout the country.
In Scotland last night children were warned away from frozen waterways as weather experts predicted blizzards would hit northern Britain.