Fifty dead and thousands stranded as cold snap hits East Asia

• As Inmates blow up wall to escape prison in Brazil

A cold snap sweeping across East Asia has led to more than 50 deaths in Taiwan and stranded at least 60,000 tourists in South Korea.

Taiwanese media reported a rash of deaths from hypothermia and cardiac disease following a sudden drop in temperature over the weekend.

Meanwhile heavy snow forced the closure of the airport on the Korean holiday island of Jeju, cancelling flights.

The cold spell has also hit Hong Kong, southern China and Japan.

Many of those who died in Taiwan were elderly people living in northern regions such as Taipei and Taoyuan. The north saw an unusually low temperature of 4C (39F) on Sunday.

Authorities have warned people, especially senior citizens, to keep warm and stay out of the cold.

In South Korea, more than 500 domestic and international flights have been cancelled in Jeju as the island, known for balmy weather and beaches, saw -6C weather. The airport is due to reopen on Monday night.

Thousands of tourists were left stranded over the weekend. Yonhap news agency reported that local officials were scrambling to find transport and accommodation.

In Hong Kong, residents shivered in 3C, the lowest temperature there in nearly 60 years.

Parts of Guangzhou and Shenzhen in southern China have also seen the rare appearance of snow, while the southern Japanese island of Okinawa has seen sleet for the first time ever, report Chinese and Japanese media.

Snow storms have hit large parts of Japan as well, with more than 600 domestic flights cancelled across the country on Sunday and Monday, reported NHK news.

At least five people have died from the snow so far and more than 100 have been injured in Japan.

Meanwhile, forty inmates escaped from jail in the eastern Brazilian city of Recife after a bomb was used to blow a hole in an external wall, authorities there say.

Most of the prisoners were captured after a manhunt through local streets lasting several hours, but two were killed and one remains at large.

It is the second mass breakout in the area in a week.

On Wednesday, 53 men escaped from another jail on the city outskirts and only 13 of them have since been found.

Social media images broadcast on Brazilian TV captured the moment when the explosion ripped through the external wall of the Frei Damiao de Bozanno prison.

Minutes before a man in the street walked up to the prison wall, left a package and moved quickly away.

Seconds after the blast, dozens of men are seen leaping through the hole in a cloud of dust.

They fanned out into the residential streets, many running into houses.

The prison guard’s union said it had warned the authorities that a breakout was imminent.

It said that at the time of the explosion, only half the observation towers at the prison were manned because of staff shortages.

The union said that the state of Pernambuco in which Recife lies has little more than 1,500 prison guards for its penitentiaries when there should be at least 5,000.

Prisons in the state are often run by electing inmates to maintain security alongside the guards.

The union also said that like most Brazilian jails, this one was severely overcrowded.

The prison complex houses four times the number of prisoners it was built for.

BBC