Repair work on the boiler plant was in progress and the electricity supply to the village of Yeletsky, which had also been cut off, has been fully reestablished while extra fuel and hot water was being sent in to the local train station and other sites in the village, the reports said.

Nonetheless, a special train was dispatched to the the village and the go-ahead had been given to evacuate the village's children and take them to warm shelter in a neighboring town until the boiler was repaired and heat restored to homes, the RIA-Novosti news agency said.

"This village is in a critical situation," Viktor Beltsov, spokesman for the Russian emergency situations ministry, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying on Saturday.

Temperatures inside houses in the village, located in the central-northern republic of Komi, were around minus 10 degrees Celsius (around 14 degrees Fahrenheit), Belstov said.

Russian television broadcast footage from the village showing homes without heat eveloped in thick ice and deep snow drifts.

Weather forecasters say temperatures in Moscow will plunge dramatically from Monday and are expected to range between minus 20 and minus 30 Celsius (minus four to minus 22 Fahrenheit) throughout the coming week.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.