bitter blast blankets Europe

ORIGINAL CAPTION: A girls run next to a dam as covered with ice as sea water is frozen in Constanta, east of Bucharest, on Feb. 1. Temperatures plunged in central Romania, eight people died due to cold related causes according to local media. (Daniel Mihailescu / AFP - Getty)

A girl with masked face walks in the centre of Kiev during on February 1. Forty-three have died of hypothermia in the Ukraine over the past six days as the country has suffered a severe spell of cold weather, the emergency services ministry said Wednesday. Most were homeless people who froze to death on the streets, while seven were found dead in their homes, and more than 800 people sought medical help for frostbite and hypothermia. (Sergei Supinsky / AFP - Getty)

A man walks below a frost covered Wendelstein church, Germany's highest church, on the 6030 foot high Wendelstein mountain near Bayrischzell on Feb. 1. Temperatures down to 7 degrees have hit parts of southern Germany in the last few days. (Michael Dalder / Reuters)

A Ukrainian man, covered with plastic sheeting to form a tent for protection from the wind and cold, fishes through an ice hole on the Dnipro river outside Cherkasy, central Ukraine. The death toll from a severe cold spell in Eastern Europe rose to over 71 Wednesday, most of them homeless people. Temperatures dropped to minus 22 F in some regions, causing power outages and traffic chaos and prompting authorities to close schools and nurseries. (Efrem Lukatsky / AP)