© AP Photo/Vadim GhirdaA woman looks out of a window covered in frost on a bus in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. At least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia's mountains, authorities said Thursday, as the death toll from Eastern Europe's weeklong deep freeze rose to 122, many of them homeless people.
Belgrade - At least 11,000 villagers have been trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia's mountains, authorities said Thursday, as the death toll from Eastern Europe's weeklong deep freeze rose to 122, many of them homeless people.
The harshest winter in decades has seen temperatures in some regions dropping to minus 30 C (minus 22 F) and below, and has caused power outages, traffic chaos and the widespread closure of schools, nurseries and airports.
The stranded in Serbia are stuck in some 6,500 homes in remote areas that cannot be reached due to icy, snow-clogged roads with banks reaching up to 5 meters (16 feet). Emergency crews were pressing hard to try to clear the snow to deliver badly needed supplies, and helicopters were dispatched to some particularly remote areas in Serbia and neighboring Bosnia.
On Bosnia's Mt. Romanija, near Sarajevo, a chopper thumped down in the small hamlet of Ozerkovici, where a single nun lives in a Serb Christian Orthodox monastery surrounded by just a few village residents.
Wrapped tight in a black jacket and a scarf, Sister Justina greeted aid workers at her monastery: "I live alone here," she said, but noted "God will help me."
In Serbia, relief efforts are concentrated on evacuating the sick, on food delivery and gasoline distribution.
"We are trying everything to unblock the roads since more snow and blizzards are expected in the coming days," Serbian emergency police official Predrag Maric told The Associated Press.
