January 11, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 7, 1423

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DHAKA, Jan 10: The death toll in Bangladesh’s cold spell neared 400 on Friday as 109 more people were reported dead overnight prompting Prime Minister Khaleda Zia to ask for more blanket donations for the poor.

The daily Jugantar newspaper said 109 people across the country had died overnight due to the cold, bringing the toll to 396.

No official death toll has been released but newspapers have given almost daily accounts of deaths due to the cold.

Weather officials in the capital said the “moderate to severe” cold wave sweeping across northern and western regions was likely to continue for one or two more days before a respite could be expected.

Zia on Thursday renewed a call to business groups and well-off families to donate warm clothes and blankets.

Officials said thousands of blankets and warm clothes donated to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund in past few days had been despatched from Dhaka to the affected districts where officials and voluntary organizations were offering them to poor families.

In the western city of Rajshahi, 210 kilometres west of Dhaka, the temperature plummeted to 5.6 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit) making it the coldest place this winter in Bangladesh.—AFP