HEAVY SNOW and biting cold hit parts of Asia yesterday, with unusually harsh winter weather snarling up transport across India, northern China and South Korea.
In the northern Indian plains, close to 100 people died in the cold wave that shows no signs of abating with rain and snow in the mountainous regions, drastically bringing down temperatures. The victims were mostly poor people forced to live rough, sleeping on the streets or in many cases out in the open with little or no covering.
There are few homeless shelters in Indian cities and towns and, although the authorities distributed blankets and firewood in some areas, their efforts remain woefully inadequate.
The majority of the victims, about 72, were from the poorest and relatively underdeveloped Uttar Pradesh province, north of the federal capital, New Delhi, where state help was limited.
Beijing began the working week after a blast of harsh cold and heavy snow blanketed the capital and surrounding cities over the weekend, paralysing highways and forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights.
As the cold snap moved east, swathes of the Korean peninsula were also hit by heavy snow on Monday, choking up the rush hour commute in Seoul, where the main domestic airport, Gimpo, cancelled all domestic flights.
Thick fog also disrupted life across the north of India, where temperatures dropped to below zero in several places, including Sikhism’s holy city of Amritsar, 450km north of Delhi.
Temperatures in Leh in northern Jammu and Kashmir province in the Himalayas touched minus 18.6 degrees, while the Dal Lake in the state’s summer capital Srinagar was frozen over and the town under heavy snow.
Fog in the plains was affecting rail and air traffic, with more than 50 domestic and international flights and scores of trains delayed or cancelled leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded.
On Saturday, the fog led to two train accidents in Uttar Pradesh, in which 10 people died and some 50 were injured. Railway officials said the impact was not as severe as it could have been because the trains were moving slowly because of poor visibility.
Even the Taj Mahal in Agra, 200km east of New Delhi, one of the world’s seven wonders, was cloaked in fog at the weekend, its ghostly outline barely visible from close by.
The cold also resulted in power cuts for several hours at a stretch as demand for heating multiplied. Groups of freezing people huddled around makeshift fires on Delhi’s streets, adding to the smog and pollution, while animals in several zoos across the region were provided with heaters.
Many visitors from Europe said they felt the chill more in the city as most houses and buildings were built to guard against the long searing summers rather than the cold that lasts just a few weeks each year.
“The chill here is more intolerable than in Europe as the heating is inadequate and the houses draughty,” said Shomir Ghosh, a visitor from Paris. “It is a more invidious chill than the one back home.”
In China, there were no signs that the cold spell would trigger the weeks-long disruptions and power cuts that hit some parts of southern China in unusually icy weather in 2008.
The icy conditions could push up food prices temporarily by stalling shipments and damaging greenhouses, delay flights, and hold up business in Beijing and other cities for a few days.
However, Yi Xianrong, an economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said there would be no significant damage.
“This won’t have any impact,” he said. “It’s too small and local.”
The snow affected ground transportation in South Korea but analysts did not expect any major damage to Asias fourth largest economy.
– (Additional reporting by Reuters)