Frosts of seventy years

On the night of February 12-13, the temperature in Moscow dropped to minus 28 degrees. The coldest was in Klin near Moscow. There, the devices recorded minus 35.5 degrees. These figures are given by the Hydrometeorological University of Moscow and the Moscow Region.

According to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, since the beginning of 2012, 5546 people have suffered from hypothermia and frostbite in Russia, more than three thousand were hospitalized. 215 people died, there are no children among them.

The authorities note that many victims of frost are faces without a certain place of residence. According to the deputy head of the Moscow Department of Social Protection of the population Sergey Logunov, these people began to contact the centers of social adaptation of the population more often.

Natalya Markova , coordinator of the “Friends on the street” movement, which helps the homeless, told Radio Liberty about how people survive on the streets in such weather:

- These abnormally cold weeks are a very difficult period for our friends who remained on the street. In October, we held the conference "Human City" dedicated to the problem of the homeless. We asked to open at least some winter heating points. We see that something has been done: many transitions are open, and the homeless can be there, Moscow overnight stays work in emergency mode-they accept everyone without any conditions. Minister Shoigu also issued an order to take measures so that people would not freeze on the streets. But the situation continues to be difficult. We have already conducted several emergency distributions of warm clothes, food. To some we helped to equip their modest dwellings on the street with thermal insulation material.

According to the vice-mayor of the capital on the issues of housing and communal services and the improvement of Peter Biryukov, there were no such frosts in the city for 70 years.

The official said that the record cold did not affect the life support system of Moscow. There were no failures in the work of energy networks; at night, snow -removal equipment went twice at the road.

On the territory of Russia, 64 serious accidents in the communal sphere have already occurred due to such low temperatures, the Ministry of Emergency Situations reports. According to the head of the department, Sergey Shoigu, 35 incidents were recorded at the housing and communal services facilities, 23 at the heat supply facilities, and another 6 in transport. The minister emphasized that the greatest problems were in the Krasnodar Territory, where, as a result of a hurricane, more than 30 thousand people were left without electricity. Due to the weather, traffic on the tracks in the Murmansk, Saratov and Volgograd regions was also violated. In the suburbs of St. Petersburg Kolpino, 12 thousand people were without heating.

According to the head of the Ministry of Emergencies, about two thousand reserve power sources are ready in the country for work. Also, if necessary, temporary accommodation points for 30 thousand people will be opened.

Galina Khovanskaya , a deputy of the State Duma from "Fair Russia", an expert in the field of housing and communal services, discusses why such accidents are taking place with the onset of cold weather in Russia:

- This year we were not lucky: the winter is stern enough, so the dilapidated communal infrastructure, worn out by more than 60%, does not withstand such temperatures, and the pipes are torn. First of all, you need to pay attention to the life support system of citizens and not save on the repair of communal infrastructure. There is only one way out - modernization, the transition to more modern equipment that withstands such temperature changes, because it is not only very cold in our winter, but in the summer it is insanely hot. But everything rests on insufficient financing. Until recently, the expenses of resource -supplying organizations were opaque, citizens provided good profit to these enterprises, and there was not enough money to invest, ”concluded Galina Khovanskaya.

Ecologists are not inclined to believe that such colds in Russia are atypical. However, the fact that frosty weather was established in Europe is called anomalous. In Bulgaria, for example, it got colder to minus 30 degrees, in Amsterdam the canals froze. About the reasons for this situation is discussed by the head of the program "Climate and Energy" of the World Wildlife Fund Alexei Kokorin:

- I would not call the weather anomalous. Still, in Moscow and in Russia -25 -30 degrees often happened. The situation is abnormal, rather for Europe. This is due to how global climate changes are manifested in the Arctic. Climatologists and meteorologists have repeatedly said that such a deep penetration of cold Arctic air is caused by the fact that there are very few ice in the Barents Sea. There is also a low pressure area there, and it does not serve as a barrier to the penetration of cold air.

- What are the consequences?

- Climate changes, mainly anthropogenic, are expected for the coming decades. And this means that we should be prepared for more unstable weather. To such as, for example, this winter: in December in Moscow, the weather was very warm, and then the period of very cold weather began. The urban economy, the issues of people's lives, health care should be resolved with the sight that we may have a snowless January with plus weather, and January with frosts -25 - 30 degrees.