KIEV, Ukraine - The death toll from a severe cold spell in Eastern Europe rose to 71 on Wednesday, most of them homeless people.

Temperatures dropped to -30 C in some regions, causing power outages and traffic chaos and prompting authorities to close schools and nurseries.

Urkaine alone reported 43 deaths. The Emergency Situations Ministry said on Wednesday that 28 people were found dead on the streets, eight died in hospitals and seven in their homes. More than 720 others were hospitalized with hypothermia and frostbite.

Authorities have deployed over 1,730 heating shelters across the country where the homeless people can get warm and eat hot food, including boiled potatoes, pork fat (a traditional Ukrainian dish), tea and coffee.

Ukraine's 1+1 channel broadcast footage of a man being treated for frostbite in his toes, which had turned completely black.

"I drank and fell asleep on the bench. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't feel my feet," the unidentified man said from a hospital bed.

Hospitals were told not to discharge homeless patients even if their treatment was finished to save them from the cold, said Svitlana Tikhonenko, spokeswoman for the Health Ministry.

"Unfortunately, people continue to die, but we are taking all the measures to prevent it," Tikhonenko said.

Some experts suggested the high death toll from the cold was linked to authorities' unwillingness and incompetence in dealing with the homeless.

Pavlo Rozenko, an expert on social policy with the Kiev-based Razumkov Center, said Ukrainian authorities suffer from the Soviet legacy of viewing the homeless as alcoholics, drug addicts and do-nothings who need to be punished and locked away from society instead of helped.

Associated Press