Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Russia battles raging wildfires amid tropical heat
by Staff Writers
Moscow (AFP) July 28, 2011
Russia on Thursday sweltered in abnormally hot summer weather as
the emergency services sought to control expanding countryside
blazes to prevent a repeat of last year's devastating wildfires.
The central city of Volgograd was Russia's hottest city with
temperatures hovering above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit)
for the past few days, hotter than Cairo, Tashkent, Tehran and New
Delhi, weather forecasters said.
Local officials issued repeated heat alerts, warning residents of
the former Stalingrad, scene of the savage World War II battle
against the Nazis, to expect tropical heat of up to 43 degrees C
(109.4 F) on Thursday.
"The world once again admires the courage and tenacity of
Volgograd residents," said Fobos weather forecasting service. "The
temperature in the city has exceeded 40 degrees for the third day
in a row."
Russia endured the worst heatwave in its recorded history last
year when wildfires spread out of control, killing dozens of
people, burning down thousands of houses and threatening military
and nuclear installations.
For the past week Russians have been struggling with a new
heatwave although it is not as severe and appears to be waning.
Thursday is expected to be the last day of suffocating heat in
central Russia, according to the Fobos forecasters. In Moscow,
temperatures are expected to spike at between 33 and 35 degrees C
(91.4 and 95 F).
"The heatwave will begin to abate from Friday," Leonid Starkov, a
Fobos meteorologist told AFP.
At 33.6 degrees C (92.5 F), Wednesday was the hottest day since
the start of the year in Moscow.
"In many ways, the weather is reminiscent of the one last year,"
Fobos said, adding however the heat was not as intense. By
comparison, the temperatures stood at 35.7 degrees C (96.3 F) on
July 27, 2010.
The hot dry air was fanning wildfires across Russia and the area
covered by blazes grew by some 3,000 hectares (7,500 acres) to
more than 21,500 hectares in the past day, the emergencies
ministry said.
A total of 192 fires continued to burn across Russia, down from
220 registered on Wednesday, it said.
Russian subways and residential buildings, most of which still
date from the Soviet era, are ill-equipped to cope with extreme
temperatures.
Mass-circulation newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda said the
temperature at the Moscow subway had exceeded permissible levels,
ambulances made nearly 40 trips to the metro on Monday and Tuesday
and one 47-year old passenger died of a heart attack.
Environmental campaigners warned earlier this year of a return of
the noxious smog which enveloped Moscow last summer but no signs
of it have been detected around the city so far.
As parched Russians take shelter in air-conditioned offices and
pray for rain, at least one industry is looking to cash in on the
hot-weather spell.
"During such hot days consumption of ice cream jumps by 10 percent
a month on average," Gennady Yashin, deputy director of the Union
of Russian Ice-Cream Makers, told AFP.
The trade industry group expects Muscovites will have gobbled up
between 330 and 340 tonnes of ice cream by the end of the month,
up from 319 tonnes consumed in June.
That, however, would still be a far cry from last July, which saw
a record-breaking amount of nearly 380 tonnes of ice cream eaten
in Moscow in one month, said Yashin.