Raging fires add to Russian misery of heat wave and drought

Russian fires triggered by a record heat wave and drought are burning out of control in a good portion of the nation’s eastern territory. Entire villages have burned to the ground and also the death toll was 48 as of Aug. 6. The wildfires smothered Moscow under a thick blanket of smoke and have left 4,000 individuals homeless. Some of the blazes threaten to re-release Russian nuclear contamination from the Chernobyl disaster locked up in the trees in certain areas. A rare does of criticism is being laid upon Russian government agencies for their slow response and lack of preparation to fight the fires. Source of article – Raging Russian fires add to the misery of a heat wave and drought by Personal Money Store.

Russian fires, heat wave and drought ravage nation

Russian fires have burned more than 1.6 million acres of land since they began, as outlined by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry. 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. As of Aug. 6, a total of 520 fires were burning across the country. The record heat wave that sparked the Russian fires, plus its worst drought in at least 30 years aren’t letting up. Scorching heat will carry on until at least Aug. 12, with temperatures in some parts of the country as high 107 degrees.

Public feels burned by Russian government

As the Russian government fights to get the fires under control, public anger is boiling over. The government’s inability to protect its citizens from both natural and man-made disasters has been brought out in the open, the Financial Times said. Despite soaring energy revenues that have transformed it into a country with a trillion-dollar plus economy, Russia still suffers from flawed governance, a slapdash approach to safety and a dilapidated infrastructure. The lives lost are much higher in Russia than in other countries where such fires occur, Nikolay Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Centre told the Times, because the system is “absolutely dysfunctional”. Petrov said that under the “super-centralized” political apparatus installed by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, communication was far too slow to be effective.

Europeans threaten by nuclear contamination from fires

Russian fires are also raising concern about the threat of nuclear contamination. AFP reports that radioactive cesium 137 from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is locked up in 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 If trees in those areas burn, the Russian nuclear contamination would be released into the air where it could be breathed in by people as far away as France.

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