Russia fought a deadly battle yesterday to prevent wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as alarm mounted over the impact on health of a toxic smoke cloud shrouded over Moscow.
One soldier was killed seeking to put out a fire dangerously close to Russia’s main nuclear research center, while workers were also mobilized to fight blazes near a nuclear reprocessing plant.
After almost two weeks of fires that have claimed over 50 lives and even part destroyed a military storage site, the authorities said they were making progress in fighting fires covering tens of thousands of hectares.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“A positive dynamic in liquidating the wildfires continues to be observed,” said the head of the emergencies ministry’s crisis unit, Vladimir Stepanov.
“The numbers [of emergency workers] have been increased in those regions where there is a difficult situation with the fires,” Stepanov said.
He said that the emergency services were starting to make inroads into the fires, saying that the area of peat fires in the Moscow region had been reduced by 30 hectares over the past day.
The acrid smog from wildfires 100km out in the countryside that descended over Moscow lightened yesterday morning, but forecasters warned it could return and the air quality was still dangerously poor.
The Moscow authorities acknowledged for the first time on Monday that the daily mortality rate in Moscow had doubled and morgues were overflowing with bodies but the federal government has yet to confirm that statistics.
Carbon monoxide levels in the Moscow air were 1.6 times higher than acceptable levels early yesterday, a slight improvement from the day before.
Carbon monoxide levels had been 2.2 times higher than acceptable levels on Monday, 3.1 times worse on Sunday and 6.6 times worse on Saturday.
A member of the Russian armed forces was killed on Monday fighting wildfires around the major nuclear research center in the town of Sarov, a town closed to foreigners.
“A burning tree fell on the soldier. He died of cranial trauma on the way to the hospital,” defense ministry spokesman Vasily Panchenkov told the Interfax news agency.
Meanwhile, officials said fires close to the town of Snezhinsk in the Urals and home to one of Russia’s top nuclear research centers had been localized.
The authorities have rejected criticism that they were poorly prepared for the heat wave, which meteorologists have said is the worst in the 1,000 year history of Russia.
“If we had started preparing 10 years ago we would not have been able to do anything,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said late on Monday on a visit to one of the worst affected regions.
“Putting out fires in Luxembourg is presumably easier than in Russia,” he said.
The heat wave has a huge impact on all areas of Russian society and economists warned yesterday the record temperatures could have cost the country US$15 billion and undercut a modest economic revival.
Worst hit has been the agriculture industry, which has seen 10 million hectares of land destroyed.
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