Asia shivers under low temperatures

A Pakistani Kashmiri earthquake survivor sits with her children outside her tent in a hilly area covered with snow in Awan Patti, some 38km from the devastated city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan Administered Kashmir yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

At least 57 people have died in Japan and transport has been paralysed after some of the heaviest snowfall on record. Television has showed drifts burying the ground floors of houses and almost covering street lamps.

Heavy snowfall in China's far western region of Xinjiang and temperatures as low as minus -43 degrees Celsius have forced the evacuation of almost 100,000 people, the state weather bureau said.

Rescue teams have rushed to the area where up to one 1 metre of snow has fallen since late December, the China Meteorological Administration said on its Web site (www.cma.gov.cn).

Snow has blanketed the eastern province of Shandong too, cutting off roads and grounding aircraft, as China chills in what the China Daily said this week was the coldest winter in 20 years.

In South Korea, temperatures fell as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in some northeastern parts of the country while snow hit southwestern regions, including Cheju Island.

Late on Friday, the Korea Meteorological Administration issued warnings of more heavy snowfall in parts of Cheju and other smaller islands along the southwestern cost line.

In northern Pakistan, up to 18 people have died from pneumonia in the region hit by a killer earthquake in October, which left over 73,000 dead and millions homeless.

Heavy snowfall and chill winds last weekend disrupted helicopter relief flights, and caused the collapse of many makeshift tents sheltering families next to their destroyed homes high in the Himalayan foothills of Pakistani Kashmir and North West Frontier Province.