The cold snap has now claimed 101 lives in Ukraine, as temperatures plunged to new lows in Europe.
A week-long cold snap has so far claimed more than 200 lives across the continent.
Forecasters have warned that the big freeze will tighten its grip at the weekend.
64 of the victims in Ukraine died on the streets, the emergencies ministry said.
Almost 1,600 people have requested medical attention for frostbite and hypothermia there.
Authorities have announced that 2,940 shelters have been set up across the country and another 100 would be opened today.
However, forecasters say temperatures would hover between -25 to -30C at night and -16 to -21C in the day.
Temperatures have been so cold in Bulgaria that parts of the River Danube have frozen over.
Around 60% of the surface near the port of Ruse was iced over, severely hindering navigation, the Danube exploration agency said.
Elsewhere in Bulgaria, another six people were found dead from the cold, bringing the overall tally to 16 in the last week, according to local media.
Most of the dead in the European Union's poorest country were people in villages, found frozen to death on the side of the road or in their unheated homes, the reports said.
The ferocious temperatures claimed the lives of eight more people over the last 24 hours in Poland, bringing the death toll there to 37.
In the Czech Republic, the mercury dropped to as low as -38.1C overnight.
Heavy snow fell in central Rome, giving tourists a rare sight of whitened landmarks such as Saint Peter's Square and the Trevi Fountain, while the Colosseum and the Roman Forum were closed due to the icy conditions.
In the heaviest snowfalls in the Italian capital since the 1980s, around 40cm of snow had settled in the northern outskirts of the city by midday.
It is forecast to intensify throughout the day and overnight, before easing off on Saturday.
Heavy snow has fallen over much of Italy this week causing severe disruption to train and road transport, especially in the mountainous regions of Piedmont, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany and Umbria.
On Wednesday passengers were stuck for seven hours in the countryside on a train that was to have gone from Bologna in the north to Taranto in the south after the electrical wires froze over.
Britain braced for snow
Swathes of Britain are bracing for snow after temperatures plunged again. The lowest temperature of -11C was recorded overnight in Chesham, southeast England.
Forecasters said many parts of the country would see several centimetres of snow, although it is likely to be powdery.
Bright winter sunshine bathed two thirds of France, but the rest of the country, mainly in the east and centre, remains exposed to biting winds from the Baltic region, with an alert in place for low temperatures.
The French have cranked up their heating systems, and on Monday are expected to break an all-time power consumption record set in 2010.
In Brittany and on the Cote d'Azur, where the French power grid is least efficient, consumers have been asked to turn off appliances for at least four hours per day to avoid blackouts.
