Toll rises to 37 dead in Ukraine cold: ministry

Nineteen people died of exposure in Ukraine in the last 24 hours amid temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, bringing the toll this month to 37, the health ministry said Tuesday.

Nineteen people died of exposure in Ukraine in the last 24 hours amid temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit), bringing the toll this month to 37, the health ministry said Tuesday.

A homeless woman drinks free tea in a tent set up by the Ukrainian Emergency Ministry during a winter day in the industrial city of Donetsk.

Some 190 people asked for medical attention due to hypothermia and frostbite, and 162 of them were hospitalised, the ministry said in a statement.

The ex-Soviet country straddling Russia and the European Union was hit with a cold snap and snowstorms which left nearly 600 villages without electricity last week.

Temperatures fell to minus 16 degrees Celsius in the centre and south of the country and to minus 23 degrees Celsius in eastern Lugansk region.

Ukraine's emergency ministry said Monday it opened over 200 emergency shelters in the country.