New Year cold snap kills 23 in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar

Here.

Excerpt:

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - A spell of cold weather has killed at least 23 people in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the last few days, most of them homeless, government officials said, as temperatures dip close to freezing point.

In Uttar Pradesh, 12 people have died from the cold in the last two days, while eleven people have died in the last four days in neighbouring Bihar, officials from the states' disaster relief offices said.

Villagers in drafty huts, city slum dwellers and the homeless are the hardest hit in winter in northern India states as icy winds come sweeping down from the Himalayas.

In the capital and across the region, many thousands of people can be seen huddling around roadside bonfires come nightfall, and Uttar Pradesh government is ordering that more be lit until the cold weather passes.