Kashmir's Cold Kills
Kashmir is enduring an unforgiving winter, with snow and biting cold bringing both beauty and hardship.
Night temperatures have plummeted to historic lows, with Srinagar recording -8.5C (-16.3F), the coldest December night in nearly a century, and Gulmarg enduring -13C (8.6F). In Shopian, nights have hovered around -10C (14F) for days.
The cold has proven deadly. On Sunday, five members of a family in Gingle, Uri, died of suffocation caused by using a gas heater to stay warm. Their deaths underscore the dangers of the freezing conditions, which have also frozen water pipes and knocked the power out to tens-of-thousands of homes.
"We’ve had frozen pipes for days," said Irshad Ahmad from Srinagar. "Modern PPR pipes are useless in this cold."
