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South Asia's Poor Battle Cold Snap
By REUTERS


NEW DELHI, Jan 21 - South Asia's worst winter in decades claimed 43 more lives overnight, taking the death 
toll to 1,443 as the region's homeless fight to survive near-freezing temperatures. 

The cold spell in northern India, Nepal and Bangladesh since Christmas has also disrupted road, rail 
and air traffic across the region and closed schools, and weather officials see no let up for 
at least a few more days. 

Officials in India's most populous and worst-hit state, Uttar Pradesh, said on Tuesday 37 people died 
overnight. 

"God has been rather unkind to people like me who have to bear the brunt of the cold under the open 
skies," said Sham Lal, a cycle rickshaw rider in the state capital, Lucknow. 

So far, 707 have died in Uttar Pradesh, where the temperature in the state's industrial hub, Kanpur, 
plunged to a record zero degrees Celcius (32 Fahrenheit) on Monday night. 

"Freezing conditions will continue over the next 48 hours," Uttar Pradesh weather department 
chief R. K. Verma told Reuters. 

Although temperatures in South Asia do not fall as low as in North America and Europe, people 
have been hit harder because millions in the region live on pavements or in makeshift shacks and help 
and shelters are almost non-existent.