In Karajukica Bunari on the Serbia-Montenegro border the temperature fell to minus 34 Celsius (minus 29 Fahrenheit). Meteorologists predicted the January 1954 record of minus 38.4 would fall in the coming days.

On Wednesday, the central Bulgarian town of Sevlievo had a 50-year record low temperature of minus 34C, and according to inland shipping reports the River Danube waterway was partially iced up in dozens of places, from Hungary to Romania.

"Huge blocks of thick ice are floating on the river. We expect the lower Danube to be completely iced by tomorrow," the Bulgarian state news agency BTA quoted an official as saying.

Temperatures hit a 15-year low of minus 36C in eastern Romania. The Black Sea coast was badly hit by frozen snowdrifts topping 2 metres (6 feet) and many roads were closed.

In Macedonia, where temperatures dipped below minus 25C, an army captain was found frozen solid just 300 metres (yards) from his border post in the Sar mountains on the Kosovo border.

Three died of cold in rural Croatia, four hypothermia fatalities were reported in Bosnia and four in Albania.

Hospitals in central Bosnia were closed when antiquated heating systems lost the battle against a minus 29C freeze and ward temperatures fell to a bone-chilling minus 10 degrees.

"We are sending patients home and operation rooms are closed except for the most urgent cases," hospital spokesman Marko Radoja told Reuters in the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka, which has recorded its lowest temperatures in 20 years.

In Albania and western Kosovo, villagers in remote areas had to drive off wolves and wild boar searching for food.

The Albanian daily Metropol said a 27-year-old mentally-ill man was found devoured by wolves in the mountains near Elbasan, where villages lie two metres (six feet) deep in snow.

Army bulldozers and snow ploughs worked non-stop to keep a few passes open, while helicopters ferried the weak and sick.

In Kosovo, power was cut to four hours off, two hours on, while temperatures hovered below minus 20C. A state of emergency was in force in the Serbian town of Sjenica, near the Montenegro border, after six days of minus 30 degree frost.

"We should have left for surrounding villages on Wednesday with bulldozers and other machines, but no one was able to start the bulldozers," Deputy Mayor Veroslav Karlicic said.