Translated material
Burning Summer
The number of victims of forest fires in Central Russia has reached 30 people
Representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations yesterday reported some stabilization of the situation with the spread of forest and peat fires in the central regions of the country, as a result of which more than a dozen villages and towns were completely or partially burned out at the end of last week. According to rescuers, on Saturday and Sunday the fire did not affect a single settlement, not a single residential building, and not a single person was injured.At the same time, the situation continued to remain difficult in many regions. In the Nizhny Novgorod region and neighboring Mordovia, rescuers fought forest fires in the vicinity of the city of Sarov, where the Federal Nuclear Center is located; in the Samara region, Togliatti was covered in a thick veil of smoke from fires that broke out almost within the city. On August 1 alone, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 320 new natural fires were registered, of which only 210 were extinguished.
At the same time, weather forecasters still do not promise any improvement in weather conditions - lower temperatures and long-awaited rains - in most regions this week. After the heat subsided a little in many places over the weekend and there were showers, another increase in heat is expected. In the Moscow region and the capital itself, by the end of this week, according to the forecast, the daytime air temperature may rise to 40 degrees Celsius.
Over the weekend, the authorities simultaneously summed up the first results of the terrible forest fires, in which several large towns and villages burned out in different regions. According to the latest official data, based on the results of an inspection of the emergency sites, the number of disaster victims has already reached 30 people. Of these, 14 died in the Nizhny Novgorod region, where more than 750 residential buildings were destroyed by fire last week, five in the Voronezh region, seven in the Moscow region, four in the Ryazan region.
Prime Minister Putin has already signed a decree to allocate 5 billion rubles to residents of the 14 regions most affected by wildfires, and President Dmitry Medvedev has given instructions to build temporary housing for all those affected before the onset of cold weather. At the same time, a decision was made to deploy units of the Ministry of Defense to help rescuers, who already yesterday began extinguishing peat bogs in the Moscow region, the smoke from which could be felt in the capital all last week.
Forests and peat bogs in most regions of Central Russia began to burn in early July, but “thunder struck,” as always, unexpectedly. The authorities became concerned about the situation only after it became obviously an emergency - when on Thursday in the Nizhny Novgorod region in the Vyksa district, the village of Verkhnyaya Vereya, consisting of almost 340 houses, completely burned out in a matter of minutes.
On Friday, the president held a meeting via videoconference with the head of the Ministry of Regional Development, Viktor Basargin, and with the head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development, Tatyana Golikova, instructing them to prepare housing construction programs in all regions affected by the fire. “We will restore it meter by meter. The housing will be standard, prefabricated. If we talk about timing, then we will be able to restore all these volumes, if not by the beginning of winter, then by the end of the year,” said Mr. Basargin, noting that we are talking about housing costing no more than 30 thousand rubles. per square meter.
The President instructed Ms. Golikova to provide all necessary assistance to the victims and ensure a normal sanitary and epidemiological situation in the places of temporary resettlement of those who lost their housing. “The most alarming situation, including in those positions that you mentioned, is in the Voronezh region. We are ready to evacuate patients to central cities if necessary,” said the head of the Ministry of Health and Social Development. In addition, Mr. Medvedev instructed the leaders of those regions that have not yet been affected by the fires to take the necessary measures and be prepared for emergency situations.
Prime Minister Putin, in turn, on Friday personally inspected the completely burned-out village of Verkhnyaya Vereya and talked with local residents, who harshly criticized local officials for uncoordinated and poorly coordinated actions. Directly from the scene of the tragedy, he also spoke by phone about the situation to President Medvedev, who gave permission to use the forces of the Ministry of Defense to extinguish forest fires. On the same day, the Prime Minister held a meeting in the Nizhny Novgorod region on the situation arising in connection with the fires. Since the beginning of summer, 21,692 fires have been recorded in Russia, Mr. Putin said. “Last night the situation worsened, and the situation in 14 Russian regions remains very difficult,” the prime minister noted. -- These are Lipetsk, Voronezh, Tula, Tambov, Belgorod, Vladimir, Ivanovo, Ryazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk and Kirov regions, as well as the Republics of Mordovia and Tatarstan. The situation in these regions has worsened.” Mr. Putin assessed the current situation in the region as extremely difficult, and spoke sternly to local officials: “Allocate 10 thousand rubles for each person... Immediately! I was talking to people now, you saw it. People were left without anything at all. They stand in the same trousers, the women in the same dresses. There is nothing more."
On Friday, the prime minister signed a resolution on the allocation of 5 billion rubles to Mordovia, Tatarstan, Belgorod, Voronezh, Ivanovo, Kirov, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Ryazan, Ulyanovsk, Vladimir, Lipetsk, Tambov and Tula regions. to provide financial assistance to citizens who lost their homes as a result of forest fires. “The last paragraph of the order reads: “I reserve control over the implementation of this order. V. Putin,” said the prime minister’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
On Saturday, at a regular meeting with the prime minister, it was announced that the situation with wildfires had begun to stabilize a little, but still posed a serious danger to thousands of people. “Today, more than 200 settlements are located in zones of possible transition of forest fires. The most difficult situation is developing in the Voronezh, Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod regions, as well as in Mordovia,” reported the head of the National Center for Crisis Management of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, Vladimir Stepanov.
On Saturday, the President, in turn, held a meeting with the head of the Ministry of Defense, Anatoly Serdyukov, who reported on how his department would join the fight against the elements. “In the Moscow region, we plan to deploy three pipeline battalions in the coming day, today or tomorrow, to supply water and refuel the corresponding fire engines,” the minister said. -- More than 300 units of equipment will be used in other constituent entities of the Russian Federation. I think that all the forces that we have, all our fire departments, teams, we will use everything in full. Moreover, we have our own facilities, which are also in a rather difficult situation. We are also taking measures to protect them.”
According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Nizhny Novgorod region has suffered the most from the fire so far. There, the villages of Verkhnyaya Vereya of 341 houses and Shernavka of six houses were completely burned down, two more villages were partially damaged, and the total number of fire victims in the area was 14 people. As of Saturday evening, 1,211 people were recognized as affected by the fire in the region, 759 households were burned in the fire, 459 people (183 families), including 40 children, were evacuated from fire-affected settlements. Thus, the region claims the largest portion of the financial assistance allocated by the state, and total payments will likely exceed 2.5 billion rubles.
By Sunday evening, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 18 forest fires had been localized in the region, with no new fires recorded. “Firefighters are extinguishing fires in six districts of the region. The fires are of a grassroots nature, sometimes turning into high fires with gusty winds. The forest is predominantly coniferous, inaccessible, with marshy areas, which seriously complicates the passage of equipment,” said the regional department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Yesterday, the governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Valery Shantsev, said that firefighters were saving a nature reserve in neighboring Mordovia from fire, from where the fire threatens to approach the Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov.
A difficult situation has also developed in the Voronezh region, where a sharp deterioration in the situation began on Thursday. Five people have already died from forest fires, the total area of which is more than 15 thousand hectares. In the vicinity of Voronezh itself, about 300 houses burned down, as a result of which 425 people lost their homes, and more than 4 thousand people had to be evacuated. On Friday, thick smoke from fires enveloped the regional center, and traffic police officers were forced to block traffic on the Don federal highway for almost a day due to the smoke, traffic along which resumed on Friday evening. As of Saturday, the elimination of nine forest fires on an area of almost 2.5 thousand hectares continued in the region. Two Il-76 aircraft and a Mi-8 helicopter are used to extinguish the fire.
In the Ryazan region, according to the local Ministry of Emergency Situations, work continues to extinguish eight forest fires on a total area of 4365 hectares in the Ryazan, Klepikovsky, Spassky and Rybnovsky districts. “The group involved in extinguishing the fire has been increased. In total, almost 2 thousand people are fighting the fire, using 108 pieces of equipment,” the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported, noting that if weather conditions change, “forest fires could pose a threat to nine settlements in these areas.”
Over the weekend, the situation unexpectedly worsened in the Samara region, where a fire has been burning in a forest area in the city of Tolyatti since Friday. The city itself was enveloped in clouds of thick smoke. Firefighters detected several fires at once, which forced the evacuation of more than 2 thousand people, mostly children from holiday camps, sanatoriums and tourist centers located in the green zone between Avtozavodsky and the Central districts of the city.
The eastern and southeastern regions of the Moscow region continue to suffer from fire, where, as of August 1, 27 fires were being extinguished over an area of more than 160 hectares. In addition, rescuers near Moscow continue to fight peat fires, which they have not yet been able to cope with. The Lukhovitsky district suffered the most from the fire, where the village of Mokhovoye almost completely burned down on Thursday night. Seven people died in the fire, including one rescuer. More than 150 people were left homeless. Yesterday, the temporary accommodation center for residents of the villages of Mokhovoye and Kadanok, which was also seriously damaged by the fire, was visited by the Governor of the Moscow Region, Boris Gromov. He promised that all victims would receive new housing either in the localities where they lived or in nearby ones, and ordered additional financial assistance to be paid to the families of the dead and injured, who, in addition to payments from the federal budget, can count on 300 and 150 thousand rubles. respectively.
Meanwhile, the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the Nizhny Novgorod Region announced yesterday that a number of arrests had been made of those suspected of looting from the ashes of houses burned down as a result of forest fires. In particular, on Saturday evening in the burnt Verkhnyaya Vereya, “two citizens of Uzbek nationality, who were drunk, with shopping bags containing various clothes and products made of non-ferrous metals,” were detained. In addition, Nizhny Novgorod law enforcement officers detained a 58-year-old local resident in the village of Motmos, Vyksa district, who, while heavily intoxicated, tried to set fire to the house of his partner. The police assume that in this way he was going to claim his rights to receive compensation for his burned-out home.
In total, according to the Ministry of Regional Development, by August 1, 1,875 houses were damaged as a result of forest fires, 2,210 people were left homeless, and more than 4.6 billion rubles will be required for the construction and restoration of buildings. The Ministry of Emergency Situations noted that 77 settlements in ten regions of the Russian Federation were damaged by fires, 1,257 households were destroyed by fire, in which 30 people died, and more than 5.2 thousand people were evacuated. According to the department, as of Sunday morning, of the 774 fires that were burning in Russia, 405 were in the Central and Volga Federal Districts.