Workers at the plant had to take one reactor offline for several hours Jan. 22, after the frost caused a defect in the one of the transformers, which then caused the reactor to produce half of its normal output, according to plant spokesman Milan Nebesář.

The facility's other reactor had to be shut down a few days later due to a leak that officials say was not caused by the cold weather.

The shutdowns further ignited public outcry from protesters against Temelín, who say that the plant is not a safe source of energy.

As temperatures fell, gas consumption increased nearly 50 percent in January, said Martin Chalupský, a spokesman for RWE Transgas, the country's gas provider.

But Chalupský is not worried. He said the company is getting full deliveries from its suppliers in Russia and Norway, and is also tapping its reserves, which it does every winter around this time. The country has around 2 billion cubic meters (70.6 billion cubic feet) of stored natural gas, enough for six weeks.

"Every summer we fill the supply tanks and use up all this gas in the winter, then fill them up again the following summer," he said. "Everything is going on as expected this year and the cold weather has no impact whatsoever on the gas policy."

Gas prices will not immediately increase as a result of higher demand because they are set every four months according to world markets, Chalupský said.

The cold burst water mains in cities and towns throughout the country and left thousands without water. The frost so far has proved too much for Prague's aging pipes, some of which date to the 1880s.

The city's water supplier, Pražské vodovody a kanalizace (PVK), dealt with more than two dozen accidents in the past two weeks, spokeswoman Marcela Dvoráková said. One of the most serious occurred Jan. 26 when a pipe burst near I.P. Pavlova, shutting down tram and auto traffic in the area for hours.

Worst is over

The entire continent was in the grip of a front that came from Russia, which is suffering through its coldest winter in a generation.

Nearly 700 people throughout Europe have died as a result of the chill, including nearly 200 in Poland alone.

But the extreme cold should falter in early February, said Luboš Moravčík, head of climatology at Prague's Czech Hydrometeorological Institute (ČHMÚ).

"After that, we should experience what we can consider regular winter conditions," he said.

ČHMÚ expects nighttime temperatures in early February to range between -2 and -8 C.

This winter has been particularly harsh when you consider that a year ago some cities in the Czech Republic were in the grip of a heat wave, recording temperatures in some instances as high as a balmy16 C.