Hades Issues Desperate Aid Plea

The UN Disaster Relief Fund has called for urgent action to prevent what it called a 'crisis of unimaginable proportions', after Hell unexpectedly froze over last week.

President Lucifer of Hell has also called on the international community for help, with uncountable souls currently suffering a fifth day of Arctic conditions. Pits of boiling lava have reportedly frozen solid and Charon, the MD of the Hades Ferry Line, has been stranded in the middle of the frozen Acheron River since the crisis started. Almost all the residents of the Upper Circles of Hell are lacking basic winter essentials such as blankets and coats, with many walking barefoot through six-foot snowdrifts.

President Lucifer acknowledged that the UN had been slow to respond due to prior allegations of torture and human soul abuses in Hell, but said, "we simply don't have the infrastructure to handle this. We're sorted for eternal punishments, flaying and Sisyphean tasks, but there's been a chronic lack of investment in the hardware to handle an Ice Age."

The crisis began just after 2100GMT on Wednesday 2 March, when reports indicate that elegant New York socialite @nycdeb accepted a proposal of marriage from @dungeekin, sparking an immediate change in the normally stable climate of the Netherworld. Within hours, blizzards were devastating the normally superheated lava floes, causing significant damage and resulting in delays to the regularly-run Eternal Torture services.

The Disaster Relief Fund is to launch a televised appeal for supplies to aid the stricken Underworld, including coal to keep the torture fires burning, and equipment to build an all-weather Flaying pitch so that normal services within Hell can be continued.

Asked for his thoughts on the events which precipitated the crisis, President Lucifer said, "Utterly thoughtless. Nobody ever suspected that either of those two would get hitched - it would have been a bit bloody chilly here if one of them had done it, but the insensitive buggers had to do it with EACH OTHER. I've got something really special waiting for those two when they get down here, I can tell you."

@Dungeekin was too blissfully happy to comment.