Intemperate weather has even covered Athens's Acropolis in snow and frozen stretches of the eastern Danube running between Bulgaria and Romania.

The week-long deep freeze, forecast to last through Thursday, has claimed hundreds of lives from the Baltic nations and Russia in the north all the way down to Turkey and Greece, both semi-paralyzed by uninterrupted snowfall.

The 24-hour toll in Ukraine brings to 130 the number of weather-related deaths there since temperatures plunged into the minus 20s and minus 30s Celsius (minus 30s Fahrenheit). Ukraine's power grid has been tested to the limit, leading to record consumption of natural gas and, consequently, another row with neighbouring supplier Russia, which accused Kiev of using gas destined for its downstream European clients.

In Russia itself, well over 100 deaths have been recorded in Moscow alone. In Poland 14 persons died overnight Tuesday and 53 have succumbed since last week.

At least half of all victims are homeless people, according to official statistics, and many deaths are alcohol related. Temporary shelters have been set up in sports gyms, public buildings and hospitals throughout eastern Europe in an effort to get people off the street.

Twenty-seven people, six of them homeless, have died because of the cold in Romania over the last five days, according to the health ministry, which attributed most of the deaths to hypothermia.

A drop in supplies of gas from Russia left thousands of people in northern Romania without heating for the third day.

In Bulgaria, a homeless woman was found frozen to death in Sofia, one of five deaths attributed since Monday to frigid temperatures.

Thousands more across eastern Europe are in hospital, suffering from frostbite and various stages of hypothermia.

Three people died of cold in Serbia on Wednesday, as temperatures dropped down to minus 36 degrees Celsius (minus 32 Fahrenheit), local media reported.

Police said the body of a homeless 54-year-old man was found frozen to death in an abandoned house in Kragujevac, 90 kilometers (55 miles) southeast from Belgrade, television B92 reported.

And in the southern town Leskovac, a Roma man was found dead in a shed, the station reported, adding that the police had confirmed cold as a cause of his death.

In the northern town of Subotica, a 37-year old homeless man died of cold, police said.

In Georgia many regions are without heating since a gas pipeline from Russia was sabotaged last weekend.

Especially hard hit Tuesday and Wednesday were Greece and western Turkey, unaccustomed to sustained periods of subfreezing temperatures. Both countries were blanketed in snow and coping with massive disruptions in road, air and sea transport.

Authorities in Turkey have barely been able to keep the international airports in Istanbul and capital Ankara open, and many flights to other Turkish cities have been cancelled.

More than 800 traffic accidents have been reported in Istanbul, the commercial capital of 12 million residents, and another 300 in Ankara, resulting in 17 deaths and numerous injuries.

Sea lanes between Istanbul and nearby cities have also been shut down, and even ferry transport across the Bosphorus between the city's European and Asian sides has been disrupted. In Greece, most ships were confined to harbor due to storm conditions in the Aegean and Ionian Seas.

In both countries thousands of villages have been cut off from road transports, and hundreds are without electricity or telephone service, while many schools and public buildings remained closed.

Authorities in Greece distributed food and blankets to 250 Gypsy and homeless families living in huts to the west of the capital.

Even as temperatures eased Wednesday in Russia, the Baltic states and Germany -- where a drunk pensioner who fell asleep in a park became the cold front's sixth victim, other countries registered record lows.

In Ceske Budejovice in the southern Czech Republic, thermometers fell to minus 19.7 degrees C, 1.7 degree C below the previous record for that day set in 1947. Near the Austrian border temperatures fell to minus 27 degrees Celsius.

In Poland, the mercury inched up slightly from Tuesday lows of minus 35 degrees C (minus 31 F) in the southeast and minus 25 C (minus 13 F) in Warsaw.

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