Blankets and firewood issued as killer cold snap hits India

A cold snap left at least two dozen homeless people dead in Uttar Pradesh state since Saturday, taking the death toll from exposure in the region to 40 over the last week, police spokesman Surendra Srivastava said. Last winter the state reported 151 cold-related deaths.

Authorities have beguan distributing blankets and firewood to the homeless.

The cold caused dense fog that also led to two separate train collisions that killed 10 people and injured 47 others on Saturday in Uttar Pradesh, police said.

In other areas of northern India, including New Delhi, poor visibility grounded or delayed dozens

of flights on Saturday, said Shashanka Nanda, a spokesman for the Delhi International Airport Limited. Conditions had improved yesterday, he said.

Local television channels showed footage of hundreds of passengers and large piles of luggage crowding the airport terminals in the Indian capital.

Continued low visibility also disrupted rail schedules across large swathes of northern India, stranding thousands of people.

On Saturday the temperature dipped below 41F (5C) in parts of Uttar Pradesh and colder weather was expected, the local meteorological office said.

Meanwhile, snow blanketed Beijing yesterday, shutting down roads and forcing the delay or cancellation of scores of flights.

The snow that began falling on Saturday night piled up around China's capital, with more than

12 inches accumulating in the centre by early yesterday, according to the National Meteorological Centre.

It said upward of 42 inches had been recorded in the suburbs of Changping near the Great Wall of China, one of the country's top tourist attractions.

By 0200 GMT yesterday, 120 flights out of Beijing Capital Airport had been delayed and 86 cancelled, according to the airport's information centre.