Searchers have rescued a woman who went hunting alone in the Siberian wilderness and was trapped there for two months by huge snowdrifts and extreme cold, Altai Republic police said on Tuesday.
Galina Sinelnikova, born in 1966, went hunting on December 8, 2011 in Altai Republic’s Turochaksk District. She wasn't reported missing until January 31.
“Police and Emergencies Ministry personnel started searching for the woman. The operation was hampered by the severe weather,” police said. Sinelnikova was found in a hunter’s hut on February 5.
The current temperatures in Russia are 7-12 degrees below normal. The cold snap even extends into the normally warm North Caucasus with temperatures there plummeting to minus 20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit). Siberia and the Far East, no strangers to cold winter weather, are currently in a deep freeze at minus 40 degrees Celsius.
At least 64 people died of hypothermia across Russia in January from the freezing weather gripping most of the country, Maxim Topilin, a deputy health minister, has said.
About 1,400 people requested medical assistance nationwide, with 779 of them admitted to hospitals, Topilin said, adding that the figures only include data from 50 out of 83 Russian regions.
