Ukraine sets up emergency shelters amid cold snap

 Ukrainian authorities have set up more than 5,300 shelters to protect the homeless from a cold snap and provide assistance to drivers in their snow-trapped cars, Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vilkul said Tuesday. During his visit to the eastern Donetsk region, Vilkul said more than 1,000 teams of rescuers, physicians and volunteers are working to help people and, if necessary, deliver them to hospital, he said. Since the beginning of December last year, around 55,000 people have sought hot food and other help in emergency shelters, he added. In the past week, a cold snap, accompanied by heavy snowfall and strong winds, gripped Ukraine, causing power outages and disrupting public transport. Some regions in eastern, northern and southern Ukraine experienced night-time temperatures as low as minus 33 degrees Celsius. Weather forecasts say temperatures will go up by the end of the week. During the cold snap in Ukraine in late January and early February in 2013, at least 135 people, most of them homeless, died from hypothermia and frostbite