Authorities ask for state of emergency in Romania's Vrancea County

Local authorities in Vrancea county, one of the counties among the worst hit by the bad weather, have asked for instating a state of emergency in the county, as most major roads were still closed on Wednesday morning and over 30 villages were under power outages. Marisan Oprisan, the president of the Vrancea County Council said that people don't have access to food and medicine, while there were also problems in water supply and even in communicating with people in many of the areas in distress. He asked the authorities to investigate the abuse done by the the Highways and Roads Authority in Romania (CNADNR), which has not done anything to clear the national roads in the county in the last six days, while quoting the Code Orange for their lack of intervention.

The Highways and Roads Authority in Romania (CNADNR) started to re-open some roads in the region of Moldova, which was among the worst affected by the blizzard. The road between Braila and Galati was opened earlier today (February 8 ), the same as the one connecting Bucharest and Pitesti. The road between Bucharest and Alexandria was also opened on Wednesday morning.

Conditions around Romania remain tough, and the Central and Eastern Europe region's plight continues to make international headlines as the worst affected by Europe's deep freeze. More than 140 Romanian towns and villages were cut off by the blizzards, with neither road nor rail connections and that the electricity supply was down in around 174 villages, emergency department spokesman Alin Maghiar said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

The arctic conditions have already claimed hundreds of lives, with the Ukraine the worst affected. Over 30 people died in Romania, where hundreds of villages are snow- bound and without electricity. Authorities are also warning of flooding when the snow thaws and a breached damn wall has already flooded a southern Bulgarian village. The meteorologists issued a Code Yellow for ice for the entire country, from Wednesday ( February 8 ) until Sunday ( February 12 ). The minimum temperatures in this period will generally be between minus 25 and minus 15 °C, while during the day the temperatures will remain below freezing. The bad weather hit Romania more than a week ago, when it started snowing heavily and temperatures reached dropped to record lows. Villages in several counties in the country, such as Buzau, Vrancea, Galati and Braila are isolated and under power outages. A total of 48 national roads and highways have been closed and 16 roads have traffic restrictions. Moreover, 184 trains are canceled, and three ports are closed, namely Midia, Mangalia and Constanta, reads a statement of the Romanian Ministry of Transport. At time of writing, all airports are reported open.