| Experts have calculated the damage from the September earthquake in Altai In the southern regions of the Altai Mountains Republic, which experienced a series of strong earthquakes at the end of September, after long calculations and approvals, the restoration of destroyed buildings and communications has finally begun. This week, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, having familiarized himself with the findings of the Gosstroy commission, signed an order to allocate the first tranche of 535.2 million rubles to the republic.
According to the authorities' calculations, 86.2 million rubles. Of this amount, about 200 families will receive, whose houses could not withstand the earthquakes that occurred on September 27 and October 1 with a force of up to nine points on the Richter scale and now, according to experts, cannot be restored. It is assumed that each family, regardless of composition, will receive 431 thousand rubles for the construction of new housing. At 13 million rubles. Gosstroy experts assessed the costs of constructing new engineering infrastructure and communications facilities. Most of all, about 436 million rubles, will be spent on the construction of new, to replace completely destroyed, administrative buildings - hospitals, clinics, kindergartens and schools.
According to the latest data from the Republican Commission for Elimination of the Consequences of the Earthquake, a total of 875 residential buildings were damaged in the villages of Kosh-Agach, Shebalinsky, Ongudai and Ulagansky districts, about 200 of which were lost irretrievably. The authorities plan to begin construction of new residential buildings, 15 schools and 11 hospitals in the coming days, as soon as the millions allocated from the federal budget arrive in the republic. At the same time, the question of how high-quality the construction will be, carried out in conditions of a full-fledged Siberian winter (snow has fallen in Altai for a long time, and the temperature is minus 20 degrees), is not discussed. It is believed that the construction of these facilities will not tolerate any delays. The republic plans to begin repairing the surviving but partially damaged facilities - and these are more than 600 residential buildings, 10 schools and 5 hospitals - no earlier than December. Most of them will need to be re-roofed and walls and floors restored. For this part, experts have not yet completed the final calculation of the damage, and besides, the government of the republic will have to cover the repair costs. It is expected that local authorities will need to find about another 500 million rubles. In the meantime, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, more than 1.5 thousand people remain homeless in the republic, most of whom live with relatives or in hotels provided by local administrations.
Against this background, the slowness of the leaders of Gorny Altai began to cause open discontent with the federal authorities. This week, the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Sergei Shoigu, at a press conference in Novosibirsk did not rule out that a special commission from his department would take over the work of restoring the republic’s economy, and the region expects something like direct presidential rule, since Mr. Lapshin “ is not at all involved in the affairs of the region.” This, according to Mr. Shoigu, also confirms that “the destruction in Altai, with assistance from the federal center, has not yet been eliminated.” The situation is also complicated by the fact that since October 22, the President of the Altai Mountains Republic, Mikhail Lapshin, who is participating in the State Duma elections on the list of the Agrarian Party, went on vacation, leaving in his place “on the farm” two commissions for liquidation of the consequences of the earthquake, headed by two of his deputies. -- Alexander Kulagin and Nikolai Taytakov. However, the powers between these commissions are not clearly distributed, and no one really knows who is responsible for what.
Meanwhile, residents of the Altai mountain villages again experienced more than just a noticeable earthquake on Wednesday. Its epicenter was located in the Chuya depression in the same Kosh-Agach region, and the strength of the tremors there reached magnitude six. However, after examining the “emergency” area by helicopter, rescuers reported that this time there was no destruction - everything that could have collapsed there back in September. Dmitry VINOGRADOV, Novosibirsk, Alexander RASKIN |
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