A MAN has apparently frozen to death in the cold snap that gripped South Africa over the weekend and forced hundreds of homeless to soup kitchens and churches for shelter, a report said on Monday. The unidentified man was discovered dead on Sunday in an alley in a Johannesburg suburb, and ambulance staff said they believed he had frozen to death, The Star newspaper reported. Temperatures in Johannesburg dropped to a minus four degrees Celsius (25 degrees Fahrenheit) early Monday, the Weather Bureau said. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Johannesburg is minus 4.5 degrees Celsius. The Salvation Army rescued 16 homeless people in ”very critical condition” from the cold from Joubert Park in central Johannesburg on Sunday, mission development officer Timothy Mabaso said. Some of them could not walk or speak properly when they were found, he said. His centre had provided food and blankets to at least 110 people, including children, affected by the cold. Soup kitchens and churches have also been sheltering the homeless from freezing temperatures, the newspaper said. The low temperatures have also brought rare snowfalls to mountains in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces.