Millions of people in the Indian capital woke yesterday to the coldest weather in 70 years, as the death toll from northern India's cold spell rose to 116, a police spokesman and the Meteorology Department said.
The toll included nine people who froze to death overnight in Uttar Pradesh state, Mahendra Verma, a spokesman for the state police, said in Lucknow, the state capital.
Most of the state's 101 victims have been poor people forced to sleep outside in parks or in public places such as railway stations, protecting themselves with plastic sheets and jute bags, Verma said.
Another 15 people have died of cold in northern Punjab and Haryana states since November, Press Trust of India said, bringing India's death toll from this year's cold snap to 116.
70-year record
The temperature dipped to 0oC early yesterday in New Delhi, the lowest recorded in the past 70 years and 7?C below normal, the Meteorology Department said in a statement.
The previous low recorded in New Delhi was minus 1oC in 1935, the statement said.
Overnight, two people died of cold in Kushinagar, a town 225km southeast of Lucknow, as the night temperature dropped to 2oC, Verma said.
A teenage boy's body was also found at a railroad station in Lucknow, he added.
The other six deaths were reported from Mathura and Muzaffarnagar districts in the western and eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh state, he said.
In neighboring Bangladesh, 17 people died in two days, raising this year's toll from below normal temperatures to 23 in impoverished northern Bangladesh, which is near the Himalayan foothills, a news report said yesterday.
Of the new victims, about 15 were children and the rest were elderly villagers, the Janakantha daily reported.
Child victims
At least seven children and one elderly woman died in past two days in Rangpur district, 248km north of the capital, Dhaka, the report said.
The temperature fell to as low as 8oC, below normal for winter in the tropical South Asian country, according to the met office in Dhaka.
Most Bangladeshi villagers, who live in mud-and-thatch huts and often cannot afford warm clothes, are poorly equipped for colder-than-normal weather.
Authorities in India have advised people not to venture outdoors in the worst-hit areas of the state.
"Don't venture out unless it is urgent," said Manvendra Singh, a joint director of the state's health services.
The Meteorology Department predicted that temperatures in India would start rising last night.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and