Seven people were hospitalized with frostbite in the capital Kiev during the past 24 hours, where daytime temperatures Friday stood around minus 25 C (minus 13 F), the health ministry said in a statement.

Some schools in the capital sent pupils home because of the cold, which was expected to last into next week.

In the eastern city of Kharkiv, the cold temperatures, accompanied by heavy snowfall and gusting winds, closed schools and the airport.

In the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, the government banned miners from descending into 19 pits where the plunging temperatures had created hazardous conditions, the Interfax news agency reported.

The weather conditions strained the national grid, with breakdowns reported in 671 towns, the fuel and energy ministry said in a statement.

The Arctic blast has affected Ukraine's northern, central and eastern regions the worst, where temperatures have dipped to minus 32 C (minus 25.6 F) over the past couple of days, weather officials said.

The cold is expected to last into next week, with temperatures due to hover around minus 30 C (minus 22 F) in some parts of the country.

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.