A blizzard (winter storm) has killed at least 34 persons across the United States with 109cm (43 inches) of snow falling being recorded on Sunday morning, at the rate of 5-7cm (2-3 inches) per hour and plummeting temperatures to minus 45°C. Around 60% of the US population was under weather advisory, urging people to stay indoors.
As per media reports, major casualties were reported in and around the city of Buffalo at the edge of Lake Erie in western New York state, as numbing cold and heavy “lake-effect” snow gripped the area. The storm, now in its third straight day was stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico.
Storm-related deaths were reported in recent days all over the country: 13 in Erie County, New York and another in Niagara County, where a 27-year-old man was overcome by carbon monoxide after snow blocked his furnace; two in Cheektowaga, New York; 10 in Ohio, including an electrocuted utility worker and those killed in multiple car crashes; six motorists died in crashes in Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky; a Vermont woman struck by a falling branch; a homeless man found dead in Colorado’s sub-zero temperatures; and a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice. A Christmas Eve bus crash that police said was likely due to icy road conditions near Loon Lake in Canada’s British Columbia killed four people and left dozens hospitalised.
More than 3,000 US flights were cancelled when thousands of travellers were up for Christmas.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has said that the death toll might climb further.