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Russian Wildfires Spread Amid Record Heat, High Winds (Update1)
2010-08-01 14:36:29.702 GMT
(Adds comments from spokeswoman and Putin's plans, starting
in third paragraph.)
By Lucian Kim
Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Russia is experiencing intensifying
rural wildfires stoked by a heat wave and strong winds, the
country's Emergency Situations Ministry said.
More than 128,000 hectares (500 square miles) were burning
today, the ministry said on its website. New fires appeared as
temperatures in the European part of Russia approached 40
degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and winds reached 20
meters per second (45 miles per hour).
"We're fighting the fires with all our strength,"
Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova told
state-run broadcaster Rossiya-24 today. During the past two
days, no houses have burned down and there have been no more
deaths, she said.
Fourteen regions have declared a state of emergency after
wildfires engulfed entire villages, leaving 28 people dead and
more than 2,000 homeless, according to Rossiya-24. About 180,000
rescuers are battling the fires, aided by 18 aircraft,
Andrianova said. Planes have dropped 3,000 tons of water to
douse the flames over the last day.
Moscow has already broken several heat records this season
and a drought in agricultural regions has scorched more than 10
million hectares of cropland. High temperatures of at least 36
degrees Celsius are forecast for Moscow in the coming week,
according to Gidromettsentr, the state weather service.
Putin Meeting
President Dmitry Medvedev discussed the situation with the
governors of five affected regions today, according to the
Kremlin website. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is due to meet
regional leaders in Moscow tomorrow.
The state has already released 321 million rubles ($11
million) out of a total of 4.6 billion rubles in government aid,
the Regional Development Ministry said on its website today.
Soldiers and volunteers have joined the ranks of firefighters,
according to the Emergency Situations Ministry.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church,
called on believers to pray for rain and assist the victims of
the fires, Interfax reported from Diveyevo in the Nizhny
Novgorod region, east of Moscow.
Putin traveled to the same region on July 30, where he
promised inhabitants of the village of Verkhnyaya Vereya that
they'd receive state compensation and their homes would be
rebuilt by winter.
The Emergency Situations Ministry reported that 1,257 homes
have been destroyed by wildfires nationwide.
For Related News and Information:
Russian weather stories: TNI RUSSIA WEATHER <GO>
Russian agriculture news: TNI RUSSIA AGR <GO>
Top Russian news: TOP RUS <GO>
--Editors: Keith Campbell, Paul Armstrong.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Lucian Kim in Moscow at +7-495-771-7748 or
lkim3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Willy Morris at +44-20-7330-2254 or
wmorris@bloomberg.net
