Death Toll Climbs Past 200 as Mercury Stays Low in Europe

PARIS — A Dutch zoo moved its shivering penguins into a cooler. Swans in England were stuck by their feet in frozen ponds. The French president’s guard couldn’t hail its chief because the trombones froze.

Europe’s deepest freeze in a decade was blamed Friday for more than 200 deaths as a Siberian cold front chilled the continent for an 11th day.

At least 22 more deaths were reported by the end of the day, bringing the death toll to 228 since the cold wave began.

Victims included the homeless and elderly poor, the daily Le Parisien said.

More than 12,000 travelers were stranded in France’s Rhone River valley after ice glazed train rails and overhead power cables, stopping the cars in their tracks.

In the French Alps, 250 holiday skiers were stuck in a ranger station after an avalanche cut them off Thursday.

For the first time since the end of World War II, the River Thames froze at Marlow, 25 miles west of London.

An Amsterdam zoo moved its younger blackfoot penguins--a species native to South Africa--out of the 14-degree outdoors and into a cooler where the temperature can be kept at a constant 41 degrees.

In Paris on Friday, President Jacques Chirac’s Republican Guard tried in vain to play the national anthem as he delivered a speech. The temperature in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace was so cold that the trumpets and trombones would not work.

In England, animal activists worked to rescue scores of swans frozen fast by their feet to icy ponds.

But in the Netherlands, the big chill was being cheered for producing ice thick enough to permit a 124-mile cross-country skating race today that was last held in 1986.

Forecasters predicted the bitter cold would continue into next week.