Rare Ukraine
Russia Is Burning Amid Record Heat Wave And Severe Drought
In a good portion of Russian territory, fires triggered by a record heat wave and drought are burning out of control. Entire villages have been wrecked by the flames and as of Aug. 6 the death toll was 48. Moscow was suffocating under a toxic blanket of smoke and 4,000 people have lost their homes. Some of the blazes threaten to re-release Russian nuclear contamination from the Chernobyl disaster locked up within the trees in certain areas. Russian government agencies, slow and poorly equipped to fight the fires, are receiving a rare dose of criticism.
Russian fires stoked by record heat wave and drought
More than 1.6 million acres in Russia have burned since the fires started, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said. To fight the fires, the government has enlisted more than 155,000 people. The Wall Street Journal reported that even as 293 fires were put out, more than 400 new fires ignited. A total of 520 fires were blazing across Russia on Aug. 6. Russia’s worst drought in 30 years and a record heat wave that lead to the fires won’t end anytime soon. Searing heat will continue, with some parts of the country reaching up to 107 degrees, until at least Aug. 12.
Heat is on Russian government
Public anger reached the boiling point as the Russian government struggled to get the fires under control. The latest disaster has underscored the inability of the government to protect Russians from such calamities, according to the Financial Times. Despite soaring energy revenues that have transformed it into a country with a trillion-dollar plus economy, Russia nevertheless suffers from flawed governance, a slapdash approach to safety and a dilapidated infrastructure. Since the system is “absolutely dysfunctional,” Nikolay Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Centre told the Times that the death toll is much higher in Russia than in other nations where such fires occur. Petrov said that under the “super-centralized” political apparatus installed by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, communication was far too slow to be effective.
Radioactive smoke could drift across Europe
Nuclear contamination is an additional threat posed by Russian fires. AFP reports that radioactive cesium 137 from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is locked up within the trees and dead leaves in forests in certain areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Philippe Renaud, head of the environmental radiation laboratory at France’s IRSN nuclear safety institute, said Russian nuclear contamination could possibly be breathed in by individuals as far away as France If trees in those areas burn.
Additional reading
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