Death rate doubles in Moscow’s smoke, heat crisis

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya and Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Paul Taylor
Mon Aug 9, 2010 9:36am EDT (Reuters) – Scorching heat and acrid smoke have nearly doubled death rates in Moscow, a city official said Monday, as a shroud of smog from raging forest and peat fires beset Russia’s capital for a third week. Firefighters battled wildfires covering 1,740 square km (1,075 sq miles) — an area the size of Luxembourg — in what the state weather forecaster said was Russia’s worst heat wave for a millennium. “The average death rate in the city during normal times is between 360 and 380 people per day. Today, we are around 700,” Andrei Seltsovsky, Moscow’s health department chief, told a city government meeting. Russia’s worst drought in decades has spooked world grain markets, driving wheat prices up at the swiftest rate in more than 30 years and raising the spectre of a food crisis. Seltsovsky said heat stroke was the main cause of the recent increase in deaths. He said ambulance dispatches in Moscow were up by about a quarter to 10,000 a day and problems linked to heart disease, bronchial asthma and strokes had increased. “This is no secret,” Seltsovsky said. “Everyone thinks we’re making secrets out of it. It’s 40 degrees (Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit) on the street. Abroad, people drown like flies and no one asks questions.” Moscow morgues and hospitals were overcrowded, funeral parlors were doing a brisk business in coffins, and a sign in one crematorium said it was fully booked and taking no new orders. “Today we have 80 bodies. We store them anywhere we can because the refrigerators are full,” an attendant at Hospital No. 62’s morgue, designed to hold up to 35 corpses, told Reuters. Until Monday, neither federal nor Moscow authorities had announced data on deaths from heat and pollution, giving rise to suspicion of a Soviet-style cover-up in the face of criticism of the government’s handling of the wildfire crisis. …