Helicopters ferried food and medicine to iced-in villagers today as Europe's 12-day-old cold snap tightened its frigid grip on the continent, where more than 400 have died as a direct result. Eastern countries such as Poland and Ukraine account for more than half this total, and dozens more have succumbed to the weather's secondary effects, such as asphyxiation by shoddy heating. Heavy snows eased in Bosnia but the bitter cold continued, especially in the south and southeast, where
temperatures dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius. Thousands struggled without power, including around the historic city of Mostar, where some 15,000 homes lacked electricity. Uma Sinanovic, a spokeswoman for Bosnia's defence ministry, said areas around Nevesinje and Berkovici in the country's south were especially hard hit.

"The electricity has been down for two days, phone lines are also down in that region," Dragan Stark of the Bosnian Serb civil protection service added. "It's a disaster." Bosnian authorities today sent civilian and military helicopters to isolated hamlets near Mostar and Kalinovic, bringing much-needed supplies and ferrying sick people to hospitals. Five choppers delivered basic food stuffs like flour and oil, lowering the supplies down by rope when landings were impossible. The Bosnian authorities said today that two more people had died from the cold in the rugged mountainous Balkan nation, raising the toll to seven, while Albania had its first victim, a man aged 37 found dead near Tirana.

Russian authorities announced at least 110 people had died as a result of the cold so far this year, 44 of them in the first week of February alone. "Weather like this is only once in five years, it's usually much warmer," Moscow resident Pavel Sterlikov said. Elsewhere, icebreakers were hard at work to clear parts of the Danube, one of Europe's main arterial waterways, with two stretches of up to 180 kilometres frozen between Serbia's borders with Croatia and Romania. More than 70,000 people remain cut off from the outside world in Serbia and other Balkan countries. In southern Croatia more than 100 villages were still isolated for the sixth consecutive day.

Miserable conditions persisted in Bulgaria, with violent snowstorms raging in the Danube plain in the northeast, where all traffic has been suspended since yesterday and where the main border crossing with Romania was closed due to ice.