Frosty weather claims at least six lives in CzechRep this weekend

The cold air streaming in from Siberia caused the temperatures to sink up to minus 24 degrees Centigrade in the northeast of the Czech Republic.

Doctors say all the six victims have probably died of exposure but only autopsy will definitively determine the cause of their death.

The first victim, a 53-year-old man, died outside a pub in Dolni Bousov, central Bohemia, on Saturday.

Another man´s body was found in his devastated and unheated flat in Ostrava this morning.

Two homeless men were found dead separately in the streets of the Prague 6 and Prague 5 districts on Saturday.

Another two men froze to death in the Olomouc region. One was found lying on a road, the other in a brook in the Kokory village, both on Sunday.

On Saturday morning, a 26-year-old foreigner suffered fatal injuries after falling down from the roof of a production hall in the Skoda Auto car-maker complex in Mlada Boleslav. He fell from about 5 metres while removing snow from the roof, local police told CTK.

A similar accident occurred in Ostrava on Friday. A 33-year-old employee of a cleaning firm died after falling from a 12-storey house from whose roof he was removing a snow layer.

Strong frosts also hit the Czech Republic in mid-December, when they claimed the lives of at least seven people in a few days.

This weekend the Arctic temperatures were registered mainly in the northeast of the Czech Republic, i.e. east Bohemia and whole Moravia. In Adrspach, east Bohemia, the temperature fell to minus 24.3 degrees Centigrade.

At the beginning of next week the heavy frosts are to subside as a result of an occlusion front coming from the west, and snowfall is expected.

Autor: ČTK
www.ctk.cz