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World’s coldest town bitten by new deep freeze of -52 degrees Celsius

Classes for younger schoolchildren were cancelled in the Oymyakon district on Friday due to severe weather conditions

YAKUTSK, November 24. /TASS/. Temperatures in Yakutia’s Oymyakon, one of the coldest permanently inhabited settlements on Earth, sank to minus 52 degrees Celsius on Friday, forcing local authorities to close schools, said the Education and Science Ministry of the eastern Siberian region.

"Classes for younger schoolchildren were cancelled in the Oymyakon district on Friday due to severe weather conditions," the ministry stated.

Local media reported earlier that children in the Oymyakon district were forced to go to school on Thursday when temperatures plummeted to minus 50 degrees Celsius.

In February 1933, a record low of minus 67.7 degrees Celsius was recorded at Oymyakon's weather station. This was the coldest officially recorded temperature in the Northern Hemisphere.

The population of the Oymyakon district is 9,000 people and the community has ten schools.

In Yakutia’s capital city of Yakutsk, schools are closed once thermostats plunge to minus 45.