A Syrian refugee woman froze to death in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley Thursday, as falling temperatures and snowfall resumed across the country, blocking roads which had been reopened during two days of sunny weather, security sources told The Daily Star.
The sources said 48-year-old Rama Tahrani died of cold overnight Thursday inside her unheated tent in Baalbek when temperatures dropped to less than -2 degrees Celsius.
Tahrani’s two young daughters, who had survived the cold, were taken in by a Lebanese family to host them, the sources said.
Tahrani is the latest victim of Lebanon's unusually chilly winter, after a massive storm ripped through the country, burying mountain villages under thick layers of snow.
Last week three Syrians died after being caught in the storm on the outskirts of the Shebaa Farms while trying to cross into Lebanon.
Many roads in mountainous areas and Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley were blocked again Thursday after the snowfall resumed early morning.
The main Beirut-Damascus highway that connects the Bekaa with the capital and Mount Lebanon was accessible only to four-wheel-drive cars and vehicles equipped with metal chains, as snowfall started at 900 meters above sea level, police said in a statement.
In Baalbek, roads were blocked again, disrupting traffic in the northern Bekaa city. More than five centimeters of snow blocked inner streets, prompting many schools to suspend classes for the day.
In southeast Lebanon, the villages of Shebaa and Rashaya, which had been completely cut off during last week’s snowstorm “Zina” that battered the country for several days, roads were accessible only to four-wheel-drive cars.
Police said the roads in the high mountains, including Tarshish-Zahle and Yanta in the Bekaa, were completely blocked.
