(Updates with third death)

SOFIA, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Heavy snow caused chaos in Bulgaria on Friday, leading to the deaths of three people and stranding hundreds of motorists, officials and local media said.

The Emergency and Disaster Ministry warned people to refrain from travelling as snow up to one metre (yard) deep covered parts of the Balkan country and temperatures dropped to minus 16 Celsius (3 Fahrenheit).

The Danube river was partially iced over, the national radio quoted inland shipping reports as saying.

An 82-year-old woman and a 66-year-old man froze to death. Another 32-year-old man, who needed dialysis treatment in hospital, died when rescue workers failed to reach his home, state news agency BTA reported.

Three days of heavy snowfall and high winds have cut electricity supplies to more than 70 villages and towns, the civil defence service said.

Meteorologists said snow was expected to continue in the northeast where all municipalities had declared a state of emergency and army bulldozers were struggling to rescue stranded villagers and motorists and clear roads.

Bad weather grounded flights at the Black Sea airport of Varna in the north-east, while Bulgaria's biggest port of Varna was open after briefly closing on Thursday.

Civil defence workers rescued 61 passengers from a blocked train in the north. A helicopter is expected to deliver food supplies to 70 tourists trapped in a mountain lodge in central Bulgaria, officials said.

In neighbouring Romania, which has also been affected by wintry weather, snowfalls eased. But some roads remained blocked and several flights were delayed after Bucharest's main airports reopened late on Thursday. (Reporting by Anna Mudeva in Sofia and Marius Zaharia in Bucharest; Editing by Sarah Marsh)

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