At least 11,000 people in southern Poland are without power this evening after heavy snows brought down power lines. It has been snowing heavily for several weeks now and the accumulated weight of snow has felled a number of trees, many of which fell across power lines.

One village between Krakow and Katowice has been particularly hard-hit and not only do the 6,000 homes in the village have no electricity but telephone lines have come down and water and central heating systems have also failed.
 

Two weeks ago, at least 100,000 people were without power as a severe winter storms hit the country. Repair teams, assisted by army units, have been working to clear roads and repair storm damaged infrastructure. However, repair work has been hampered by extremely low temperatures. At the moment, it is 17 degrees below zero in Poland but in the early hours of Monday morning, the mercury is expected to dip to -28 degrees Celsius.

Photograh: ice on power lines; bazylek100/Flickr