Polish police said the latest victims who froze to death Tuesday included a 68-year-old homeless man found in an abandoned house in the southeast town of Jozefow, and a 51-year-old man who lived alone in central Eligiow and died a few steps away from his home.

Temperatures in Poland dropped as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit).

According to Interior Ministry data, hypothermia has been blamed for 76 deaths in Poland since November 2008.

A Belgian man, in his 30s, also froze to death overnight Tuesday according to police as temperatures plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius, the country's coldest snap for 10 years.

He was found by school children and their teacher Wednesday morning in Louven public park, roughly 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Brussels, police added.

Snowfalls disrupted air traffic around Europe shutting down airports in Italy for several hours and paralysing TGV high-speed trains in France.

Milan's two airports Malpensa and Linate, as well as the airports in Turin and Bergamo, were closed all morning after snow reached up to 30 centimetres (one foot).

The French weather service called it "the coldest night of winter" so far with temperatures ranging for minus nine degrees Celsius in Paris -- the coldest since 1997 -- and minus 20 degrees Celsius in the northern Ardennes region.

The rare sight of snow was seen in the southern Mediterranean port of Marseille, closing the local airport and leaving some 12,000 households in the region without electricity.

Some 550 drivers were stranded for hours on highways outside the port city, emergency services said, as snow fell through the morning to form a coat 12 centimetres (five inches) thick for the first time in 20 years.

Caught off guard, regional officials closed all highways to traffic, while Marseille city hall suspended bus and tram services and advised residents to stay at home. High-speed rail lines to and from Marseille were also cut.

Demand for power for heating throughout France has soared and raised the risk of power cuts, especially in Brittany and the southeast.

Heavy snow has forced the closing of the mountainous French-Italian border since Tuesday night.

In Germany, where earlier this week a 77-year-old mentally ill woman froze to death, temperatures plummeted overnight with many areas recording record lows.

The coldest place was Dippoldiswalde-Reinberg near Dresden in the east where the mercury plunged to minus 27.7 degrees Celsius (minus four degrees Fahrenheit) during the night.

"Temperatures like this suggest that in certain places in the region the lowpoint must have been under the minus 30 mark," the German weather office said in a statement.

On German railways, the cold froze up train doors and points, leading to delays of up to 45 minutes, while on the roads there were fewer accidents as drivers got more used to the treacherous conditions. At Frankfurt airport, continental Europe's busiest hub, there were very few delays.

The freezing weather is expected to last through the week due to a stable mass of cold air coming from Scandanavia and Siberia, the French weather service said.

earlier related report
Snow, icy weather set Europe shivering
Arctic weather that has killed at least 10 people in recent days kept Europe freezing Tuesday, coating much of the continent in snow and disrupting air and road traffic.

In central Romania the thermometer dropped to minus 31 Celsius (minus 24 Fahrenheit). Two people died of cold Sunday and and several had to be taken to hospital while 10 people have died in Poland since Friday.

Germany recorded minus 26C (minus 15F) and a mentally ill woman of 77 who wandered out of a home in the east of the country was found frozen to death in its garden.

Police in the southeast of the Netherlands said Tuesday they had arrested overnight a homeless man who refused to go to a reception centre to stop him from freezing to death.

Temperatures of between minus 5C (23F) and minus 10C (14F) were recorded in much of eastern and central Europe while in the Norwegian capital Oslo the thermometer registered a relatively clement minus 4C (25F).

Snow covered much of Germany, part of Belgium and north and central Italy. Traffic at many European airports was disrupted though it also limped back to normal at the main international Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris.

"It did not snow last night. The runways are clear and have been de-iced. Traffic is returning to normal," said a Roissy official.

Many roads, as far as northern Spain, were affected by snow and ice.

In Paris the Eiffel tower closed on Monday reopened after being thawed out and cleared of snow.

Bad weather in France forced school closures in some regions and the national weather service predicted frigid temperatures would linger for sveral days.

Electricity consumption in France Monday night hit a record level.

Heating problems closed many British schools, while repair services received a record number of cold-related calls.

The cold weather also allowed the Dutch to participate in a national skating marathon for the first time since 1996 on the Oostervaardseplassen fresh water tidal area, near Amsterdam.

But penguins in a Dutch zoo were moved indoors and an ice-breaker patrolled Rotterdam harbour.

The wintry weather coincided with reports of sharp falls in gas deliveries from Russia via Ukraine, as Kiev and Moscow remain locked in a payment dispute.

Some 13 European countries have reported sharp falls or a complete halt in Russian gas shipments. While experts say gas reserves will mitigate any immediate impact, the European Union has called the situation "completely unacceptable."

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