Ciudad Juarez, Mexico – At least eight people have died in two Mexican states last week amid a cold wave that sent temperatures plunging to as low as 23 degrees, officials said.

Emergency management personnel in the northern state of Chihuahua said in a press conference last Friday that six people died between December 31st and January 4th in that state of hypothermia, as well as of carbon monoxide poisoning and burns stemming from the use of coal-fired heaters.

Civil Protection Coordinator Virgilio Camacho said four of the victims died of hypothermia, two of them in the town of Guachochi and two others in Chihuahua city, the state capital.

Two other people died in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, one of burns in a house fire and the other of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ninety other people have been hospitalized during the same period for burns, carbon monoxide and natural gas poisoning and hypothermia.

Chihuahua authorities declared a state of emergency in the state after two days of continuous snowfall in Ciudad Juarez brought that metropolis and other nearby municipalities to a virtual standstill. The cold wave has mainly affected the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, and Nuevo Leon.

Separately, authorities in the southwestern state of Michoacan reported that two Indians died in recent days of hypothermia, one in the city of Morelia and the other in Patzcuaro. The state Attorney General’s Office said the autopsies showed that the victims, both of whom had slept outside in frigid temperatures, died of hypothermia.

Spokespersons with the federal Health Secretariat, meanwhile, said that they will begin providing consolidated reports this week on deaths in the current winter season.