A total of 125 people have been killed in a cold snap that swept across northern India, the All India Radio said on Tuesday.

Day temperatures in northern India do not exceed 15 degrees Celsius, about seven degrees Celsius below the norm. Night temperatures are above nine degrees Celsius.

Only in the past 24 hours, a total of 40 cold-related deaths were registered in India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. Eight people, most of them homeless, were killed in the eastern state of Bihar and two in Haryana in the northwest.

With temperatures falling below zero Celsius, authorities in the Srinagar, the capital of India's northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir, have begun to dole out free blankets and firewood.

Schools were closed in Uttar Pradesh, the northwestern state of Punjab and the eastern state of Bihar.

The cold spell, which began in early January, is expected to continue for at least several days.

NEW DELHI, January 5 (RIA Novosti)