In the coldest village on Earth, eyelashes freeze and thermometers break
JANUARY 18 2018
In this remote outpost in Siberia, the cold is no small affair.
Eyelashes freeze, frostbite is a constant danger and cars are usually kept running even when not being used, lest their batteries die in temperatures that average minus 50 degrees Celsius in the winter, according to news reports.
This is Oymyakon, a settlement of some 500 people in Russia's Yakutia region, that has earned the reputation as the coldest permanently occupied human settlement in the world.
It is not a reputation that has been won easily. Earlier this week, a cold snap sent temperatures plunging toward record lows.
The town's official measurement recorded the temperature at minus 59 degrees this week, though a new digital thermometer installed in town for all to see, part of the town's reputation for frigid temperatures, broke as it registered minus 62 degrees on Sunday. According to the Siberian Times, some residents' own measurements had shown the temperature below minus 66 degrees, approaching a former record from the 1930s.
The village recorded an all-time low of minus 72 degrees in 2013.
Though schools in the area remain open as temperatures dip into the minus-40s, they were closed on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
