EUROPE entered 1997 in the clasp of a deep freeze yesterday as bone chilling winds whipped across snow and ice, bringing more deaths and misery despite the traditional New Year revelry.
As temperatures plummeted to new lows, scarcely a country in Europe was spared the tragedy of frozen corpses with the death toll, already above 160, rising daily.
But in a rare victory over the elements, rescuers freed the remainder of the 300 people trapped in a Caucasus mountain road tunnel in the southern Russian republic of North Ossetia.
A total of 148 people, 22 of them children, were finally freed after six days trapped by avalanches in the tunnel while the rest were given food and warm clothing.
One of the worst hit countries has been Romania, where at least 43 people, most of them homeless, have died, but the elderly and homeless elsewhere have also been the major victims.
In Britain, six people died in the past two days in accidents linked to the cold. Four died in car accidents one of a heart attack and one in an accident in a frozen pond.
The south of England suffered the coldest temperatures in the country, with Kent registering a record low with minus 21 C.
Brussels shivered in its lowest temperature since records began in 1921, with minus 14 C recorded overnight.
In Slovakia, a Polish national was found frozen to death in the capital, Bratislava. At least 30 people were reported to have died in Poland, 15 in France, at least 10 in Russia and 12 in Germany.
Deaths directly due to the cold have also been reported in Austria, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine.
Rail traffic was interrupted in southern France as heavy snow fell, causing problems with the points system in Avignon station.
Air, sea and rail services have been disrupted in many countries. Genoa airport in northern Italy was closed again yesterday because of renewed snowfalls.
Geneva's Cointrin airport also had to close for one hour as snowy runways were deemed unsafe for landing.
Temperatures in Poland have fallen to as low as minus 37 C, while in Austria they have averaged minus 15 C.
However, the freezing conditions did not deter hundreds of thousands of revellers from hitting the icy streets of cities across Europe to ring in the New Year.
In Paris, 200,000 gathered on the Champs Elysees, 350,000 celebrated in Edinburgh, and 70,000 in Trafalgar Square in London.