Cold Hits East Europe Hard

Eastern countries have been hardest hit by the wave of cold and snow gripping Europe, where the death toll rose Monday to more than 100 people, most of them homeless or elderly.

European weather officials are calling the frigid temperatures the coldest in a decade.

Heavy snows across the region have stranded motorists, closed air- and seaports, delayed bus and rail traffic and led to many accidents. Two people were killed Sunday on icy Dutch roads, and three people were killed on Romanian roads Monday.

In Romania, 43 people have died, many of them in poorly heated homes, according to the head of the morgue in Bucharest, the capital. Temperatures have hovered around minus 4.

In neighboring Bulgaria, 19 people have died, including a father, mother and child who froze to death in their car after it got stuck in snow near a Black Sea town that had drifts of up to 6 1/2 feet.

Seventeen people were reported dead from the cold in Poland, and in Moscow, eight people have died from frostbite in the last week. An avalanche at a ski resort in Turkey over the weekend killed six people.

In the west, temperatures dipped and snow fell from Britain to the Mediterranean. At least nine people have died of exposure in France, and in Germany, six cold-related deaths have been reported since Christmas Eve.