Heavy snow brings more deaths in Europe

Authorities have dug out stranded residents as heavy snow blanketed Eastern Europe and people struggled with travel delays, power outages and subzero temperatures.

The recent cold snap has now been blamed for at least 69 deaths, and seen the lowest temperatures for decades in some parts.

Poland, the country hit hardest by the deep freeze, reported two more deaths on Wednesday.

Greece's navy sent a ship to the island of Lesbos to house some 500 refugees and migrants.

A medical association on the island said conditions at the main camp there were 'inhuman,' with migrants in tents exposed to freezing temperatures.

Rights group Amnesty International urged the European Union and the Greek government to move migrants from the Greek islands to the mainland and launched an online petition.

Swathes of northern and eastern Bulgaria were paralysed by snowdrifts that blocked roads and left 117 towns and villages without electricity.

The main highway linking the capital Sofia with the Black Sea port of Burgas was closed.

Bulgarian soldiers used heavy machinery to clear major roads, rescue stranded people and supply remote villages with food and water.

In Kosovo, police said a homeless man was found dead, apparently from hypothermia, the second cold-related fatality reported in that country.

As temperatures plummeted to minus 25 Celsius, meteorologists said it was the coldest weather since 1963.

Snow continued to cut off communities in southern Albania where the death toll since the cold snap began stood at nine, most of them homeless people.

In Romania, blizzards closed more than 130 roads and caused huge delays and cancellations on the railways.

In Serbia, where 9 deaths were blamed on the recent cold, authorities evacuated 130 snowbound residents.