Snow falls in Rome for the first time in 26 YEARS as -36c temperatures across eastern Europe send death toll to 150



Capital of Italy usually has moderate temperatures but Colosseum is closed over ice fears

Military on alert in the UK as temperatures drop and heavy snow fall is predicted



Over 11,000 villagers in Serbia remain trapped by heavy snow and blizzard s

Temperatures across eastern Europe plummet to -30c amid fears of more deaths

Death toll in Ukraine now stands at 101, with 38 people being killed by cold last night




Snow fell in Rome today for the first time in 26 years as freezing temperatures took the death toll across Europe to more than 150.



The Italian capital is usually blessed by a moderate climate but the snowfall prompted authorities stop visitors from entering the Colosseum, the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome's ancient emperors.

The last substantial snowfalls in Rome were in 1985 and 1986, though there have been other cases of lighter snow since then, including in 2010. The director of the Colosseum, Rossella Rea, said the sites were closed out of fears that visitors could slip on ice..



Snow began falling in the late morning Friday, leaving a light dusting on trees and cars and forming slush on the roads. It wasn't clear if there would be any significant accumulation on the ground.

Rome, Italy: Unsurprisingly, no sightseers have chosen to sit on the upper deck of this sight-seeing bus as it passes the historic Colosseum today during the city's first snow fall in 26 years

Rome, Italy: Tourists walk past the iconic Colosseum during snowfalls today, while a resident in the city shivers under his umbrella



Rome, Italy: Tourists are forced to bring out their brollies as they walk past the Arco di Costantino during snowfalls today. The snowflakes are the first in the city for 26 years

EU BRACED FOR RUSSIAN GAS SHORTGAE

The European Union is bracing for another potential energy crisis in the dead of winter as Russian gas supplies to some of its member states suddenly have dwindled by up to 30 percent. The European Commission put its gas coordination committee on alert today, but insisted the situation had not yet reached an emergency level since coordination between nations to help each other had improved and storage facilities had been upgraded. Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said Russia was going through an extremely cold spell and needed more gas to keep its citizens warm. She said that Russia's gas contracts 'allow for certain flexibility in case they also need the gas. And that is the situation that Russia is facing at the moment.' The severe winter in Russia has seen temperatures drop to minus 35 C (minus 30 F).

The north of the country has also been gripped by snow and ice that is disrupting train travel.Temperatures plunged as low as minus 22 Celsius (minus 7 Fahrenheit), in Trepalle, a village in the Italian Alps.



Snow in Rome came as the death toll across Europe reached 150. Temperatures have plummeted as low as -36c in parts of Ukraine and Siberia.

In Serbia, at least 11,000 villagers are stranded in their homes by heavy snow and blizzards which have hit remote areas that cannot be reached due to icy, snow-clogged roads.

The worst weather is near Serbia's southwestern town of Sijenica, where it has been freezing cold or snowing for 26 days, and diesel fuel supplies used by snowploughs are running low.

Thirty-eight more people have died overnight as freezing weather grips Ukraine, authorities say. The death toll there from the past week is now 101.

The Emergency Situations Ministry in Ukraine said more than 1,200 other people have been treated in hospital for hypothermia and frostbite as temperatures in some parts of the country sank to -32C (-26F).

Authorities have closed schools and colleges and set up nearly 3,000 heating and food shelters across the country. Health officials instructed hospitals not to discharge homeless patients, even after treatment is finished, to save them from the cold.

Experts said the high death toll reflects the country's inability to deal with the homeless. There have been dozens of death elsewhere in Eastern Europe with thousands of villagers trapped by heavy snow and blizzards in Serbia.

Snow fell across large parts of the UK, with two inches covering Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk in white, while in the Pennines, fences and phone masts resembled ice sculptures.

Krasnoyarsk, Russia: Members of a local winter swimming club warm up on the bank of the Yenisei River in the town of Divnogorsk

Krasnoyarsk, Russia: The brave swimmers shiver in the river as the air temperature around them falls to -25c. The icy temperatures have been repeated across eastern Europe

London: Tourists dip their fingers into the coll water which has frozen over in the fountains in Trafalgar Square. Parts of the UK have experienced temperatures as low as -10c during the cold spell

London: A woman sits next to the fountains in Trafalgar Square, which have frozen over due to the cool weather

London: The fountain next to Westminster Bridge demonstrates how low the temperatures have dropped in the capital



North Yorkshire, UK: Snow falling and freezing on wire fences and walls in the Pennines make ice sculptures as the whole landscape turns white

The east of the country will again be covered in snow today and the South-East, Midlands and North will be hit tomorrow afternoon.

The Met Office said up to four inches of snow could fall over the weekend across much of England and Wales, with southern and central areas likely to see the worst of it.



A level three ‘amber’ cold weather alert - the second most serious - was issued, which warns of health risks to the elderly and vulnerable, and the likelihood of disruption to transport.



Level four 4 would mean a 'major cold weather incident', in which normally healthy people are at risk from the cold.



The alerts are tied in to the Government’s Cold Weather Plan and are relayed to organisations such as Age UK, which help the elderly through winter.



The military have been put on alert should conditions deteriorate to a level four.



When freezing conditions struck in 2010, members of the armed forces were called in to help clear snow from the roads and assist residents in particularly hard-hit areas and help clear special locations such as hospitals and care homes.



Kosovo, Serbia: A truck drives through heavy snowfalls near the town of Obilic. 122 people have died across Eastern Europe since the cold snap began on Friday last week

Belgrade, Serbia: Heavy snowfall in the town of Nis, 200km south of the Serbian capital. Freezing temperatures have killed six people and trapped some 11,500 others

Partnachklamm, Germany: A tourist walks past icicles at the gorge

A man views icicles on a window in Uzice 200km southwest of Belgrade, left, while snow clings to the tower of the Wendelstein church, Germany's highest church, 1838 metres up on Wendelstein mountain near Bayrischzell, southern Germany



Medvedja, Serbia: A car is almost completely buried by snow



The stranded people in eastern Europe are those that live in homes in remote mountainous areas. Many of the dead have been homeless people unable to find shelter.

Parts of the Black Sea froze near the Romanian coastline and there was a rare snowfall on Croatian islands in the Adriatic Sea. In Bulgaria, 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago.



Police spokesman Predrag Maric said emergency crews were pressing hard to try to clear the snow and deliver badly needed supplies.

He said: 'We are trying everything to unblock the roads since more snow and blizzards are expected in the coming days,' Maric said.



Munich, Germany: An elephant eats a snowball at Tierpark Hellabrunn zoo



St. Petersburg, Russia: A Russian man braves the cold after taking a dip in an ice hole in a lake

Ice sheets float in the river Spree near the Reichstag building in Berlin The Nettuno fountain is covered by snow in downtown Bologna, Italy while a man shovels snow in front of in Milan Cathedral



Trees weighed down by heavy snow in the German city of Winterberg

Ducks swim in the frozen Elbe-Luebeck canal near Moelln in Germany

'We hope to get the supplies there today, or tomorrow at the latest.'

Newly reported deaths on Thursday because of the cold included 20 in Ukraine, nine in Poland, eight in Romania, and one more each in Serbia and the Czech Republic. Officials said most of victims were homeless.



Polish government spokeswoman Malgorzata Wozniak said her country's victims were mostly homeless people under the influence of alcohol who had sought shelter in unheated buildings.

Officials appealed to the public to quickly help anyone they saw in need.



In Romania, the health ministry on Thursday raised the number of cold-related deaths there to 22.



About 180 schools were closed in Romania because of the freezing cold. Three ships were blocked on the Danube River - one German, one Dutch and one Romanian - and efforts were made to unblock them from ice.



In Bulgaria, where 16 towns recorded their lowest temperatures since records started 100 years ago, 1,070 schools across the country remained closed Thursday and large sections of the Danube were frozen, hampering navigation.



Bulgaria: A woman shields herself under an umbrella as she walks through a heavy snowfall in Sofia

A frozen fountain near the main railway station in Zurich, Switzerland

The Kremlin building is barely visible during a blizzard in Moscow

Snow covered bicycles lie on the ground in St. Gallen, Switzerland as workers clear snow from a path in downtown Skopje, Macedonia



In Serbia and Bosnia, helicopters evacuated dozens of people from snow-blocked villages this week and airlifted in food and medicine.



Some Bosnian villages have had no electricity for days and crews were working around-the-clock trying to fix power lines.



The airport in Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, was shut down for the second day Thursday because of heavy snowfall.



However, the cold wave wasn't causing hardship everywhere.



Mist rises from the partially frozen Vistula River in front of the national stadium in the centre of Warsaw, Poland

A thin layer of snow covers the sand on La Concha beach in San Sebastian, north Spain

The Ferrari headquarters in Maranello, near Modena, northern Italy The snow covered Ferrari test track at the sports car manufacturer's headquarters in Maranello, near Modena, northern Italy Icicles hang from a shipping pier opposite Cologne Cathedral on the Rhine

A Kamchatka brown bear plays with ice at the Gelsenkirchen zoo in Gelsenkirchen, Germany while a woman looks out of a window covered in frost while travelling on a bus in Bucharest, Romania



Dutch authorities banned boats from some of Amsterdam's canals and waterways in the hope the big freeze gripping the city would turn the still water to ice and allow residents to go skating. They also turned off mills and pumps that regulate water levels in the low-lying, flood-prone nation to improve the chances of canals freezing over.

Speed skating is a winter obsession in the Netherlands and hopes are about the possibility of holding the Elfstedentocht - or '11 Town Tour' - skating race being staged for the first time since 1997.



The 200-kilometer (125-mile) tour route takes skaters over frozen canals and lakes linking 11 towns in the northern Netherlands. The tour, which is also a race for elite skaters, has only been staged 15 times since the first official event in 1909.



Horsepower: A man rides through snow in the village of Vrapce 300km south of Belgrade in Serbia



