Hungarian villagers were scavenging for coal with their bare hands yesterday as a blast of Siberian air killed scores in eastern Europe and looked likely to keep its icy grip on the continent for another week.

At least 139 people have been killed by the cold across Eastern Europe and Germany since the cold snap began, interrupting what had been an unusually mild winter.

In the Hungarian village of Farkaslyuk, people clambered up a 30m mine dump to scrape together enough coal to heat their home and cook for a few days.

"This saves us from going to prison," said Jozsef Bari, a father of three who used to work on the mine. "If we had not had this, we would all steal wood [in the forest], and then we would all be chased [by the police]."

Temperatures in the mountains near Farkaslyuk ("wolf's den") have fallen to minus 22ºC.

The cold snap is expected to continue through the week and beyond as an area of high pressure camps over Russia, pushing cold, dry air south, said German meteorologist Helmut Malewski.

In Ukraine, the country worst hit by the cold snap, schools were shut and supermarkets in the capital, Kiev, began to report food shortages as delivery trucks struggled in temperatures as low as minus 25C. Twenty people died on Kiev in the space of 24 hours, taking the overall toll to 63, many of them homeless.

The Red Cross said it was releasing funds to build shelters for street-dwellers in Belarus and Ukraine, echoing a similar move by governments across the region.

"Homeless people have been caught unawares and unprepared. They don't follow long-range forecasts and are extremely vulnerable," said Zlatko Kovac, of the Red Cross.

Snow drifts blocking roads and runways, ice seizing up railway points and sub-zero temperatures freezing fuel and car batteries caused more transport misery.

In the Serbian region of Ivanjica, school children rode to school on horseback and villagers used the animals to fetch supplies. Residents said they feared that wolves would begin to venture into residential areas in search of food.

Europe's weather warning service, Meteoalarm, maintained its red alert warning for Serbia, where 11000 people in rural areas are cut off by snow.

"It was so cold . that several of our chickens and turkeys froze to death," said farmer Milan Radojcic in the southwestern village of Sadljike. "The eggs in the chicken coop were frozen solid."

Helicopters flew rescue missions to evacuate the elderly and dispatch supplies as 30cm of snow fell overnight in neighbouring Bosnia.

Temperatures in parts of northern Slovakia dipped to their lowest in 50 years.

Western Europe was also braced for a bitter chill as the cold front moved west.