Moscow enveloped in thickest smog blanket
Source: Agencies |
August 5, 2010, Thursday
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WILDFIRES that have wiped out Russian forests, villages and a military base sent the thickest blanket of smog yet over Moscow yesterday.
Passengers on Moscow's subway said an eye-stinging haze was hovering above platforms, as City Hall warned of health risks from the smoke carrying harmful gases, including carbon monoxide.
To the east, firefighters focused on beating flames back from a top-secret nuclear research facility, while in Moscow President Dmitry Medvedev fired several high-ranking military officials over what he called criminal negligence in fires that ravaged a military base.
Russia is suffering its worst heat wave on record, helping to ignite forest and bog fires across central and western regions. Over the last 24 hours, firefighters have extinguished 293 fires, but another 403 have been spotted while more than 500 continued to rage over large swathes of countryside, some of them out of control, the Emergencies Ministry said. The fires have killed 48 people in the past week.
Dry winds have sent clouds of smog over Moscow, but yesterday's was the thickest yet, with the haze obscuring the Russian capital's landmarks and penetrating the subway system.
Moscow's 10 million residents were cautioned to guard themselves against the polluting smog, which comes from fires of peat bogs to the south and east of the city.
Pollution indicators in the capital reached a "critical barrier" overnight, and "even healthy people must take preventative measures," Moscow weather officials said in a statement.
Some 400 kilometers to the east, about 2,000 army troops and emergency personnel were fighting back flames that surrounded Russia's top nuclear research facility in Sarov. The situation there was "tense but not critical," Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov said, after new robotic firefighting equipment was sent to the scene overnight.
The top-secret facility is Russia's main nuclear research center, and the birthplace of Soviet nuclear weapons. Lawyers for the late Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with polonium, claimed the radioactive isotope was produced at Sarov.
President Medvedev, meanwhile, fired the chief of the naval aviation and at least seven high-ranking military officials yesterday, a day after officials confirmed the fires burned at least half of the buildings at a military base near Moscow containing unspecified aviation equipment. Russian media said up to 200 naval aircraft may have been destroyed.
"If something similar happens in other places, in other agencies, I'll do exactly the same thing, with no sympathy," Medvedev told a security council meeting.
Passengers on Moscow's subway said an eye-stinging haze was hovering above platforms, as City Hall warned of health risks from the smoke carrying harmful gases, including carbon monoxide.
To the east, firefighters focused on beating flames back from a top-secret nuclear research facility, while in Moscow President Dmitry Medvedev fired several high-ranking military officials over what he called criminal negligence in fires that ravaged a military base.
Russia is suffering its worst heat wave on record, helping to ignite forest and bog fires across central and western regions. Over the last 24 hours, firefighters have extinguished 293 fires, but another 403 have been spotted while more than 500 continued to rage over large swathes of countryside, some of them out of control, the Emergencies Ministry said. The fires have killed 48 people in the past week.
Dry winds have sent clouds of smog over Moscow, but yesterday's was the thickest yet, with the haze obscuring the Russian capital's landmarks and penetrating the subway system.
Moscow's 10 million residents were cautioned to guard themselves against the polluting smog, which comes from fires of peat bogs to the south and east of the city.
Pollution indicators in the capital reached a "critical barrier" overnight, and "even healthy people must take preventative measures," Moscow weather officials said in a statement.
Some 400 kilometers to the east, about 2,000 army troops and emergency personnel were fighting back flames that surrounded Russia's top nuclear research facility in Sarov. The situation there was "tense but not critical," Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov said, after new robotic firefighting equipment was sent to the scene overnight.
The top-secret facility is Russia's main nuclear research center, and the birthplace of Soviet nuclear weapons. Lawyers for the late Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 after drinking tea laced with polonium, claimed the radioactive isotope was produced at Sarov.
President Medvedev, meanwhile, fired the chief of the naval aviation and at least seven high-ranking military officials yesterday, a day after officials confirmed the fires burned at least half of the buildings at a military base near Moscow containing unspecified aviation equipment. Russian media said up to 200 naval aircraft may have been destroyed.
"If something similar happens in other places, in other agencies, I'll do exactly the same thing, with no sympathy," Medvedev told a security council meeting.
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