Cold spell toll reaches 700

Published January 13, 2003

DHAKA, Jan 12: More freezing weather has been forecast for northern India and Bangladesh, where over 700 people have died in a month-long cold spell, officials said on Sunday.

Forty more people, mostly homeless, died over the past 24 hours in the impoverished Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, state officials said.

This brings to over 700 dead since the bad weather started — with 368 in Bangladesh and the rest in the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan.

Uttar Pradesh weather official R.K.Verma said cold conditions were aggravated by fresh snowfall in the Himalayas and several flights and trains had been cancelled.

Bangladesh’s Independent newspaper said on Sunday that 368 people had died in the last month, mostly in the north.

Weather officials said the cold spell with thick fog will last for a few more days.—Reuters