Wildfires spread across Russia’s West – Patriarch calls for Russians to pray for rain
By Katie Cassidy, Sky News Online
Sunday August 01, 2010 Firefighters in Russia are struggling to contain blazes sweeping across large swathes of the country. More than 214,000 acres of woodland and peat bog are burning and all of the army’s 300 firetrucks have been deployed to help local units. “There are thousands of small smouldering hotbeds of fire,” said Oleg Nikiforov, the chief of the emergency situations department in the western Ryazan region. At least 30 people have been killed by the fires, which have also destroyed or badly damaged 77 towns and villages. Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called on Russians to pray for rain during a visit to one of the fire-affected areas. “Grief has come to our nation, human lives have been lost, hundreds have lost shelter and thousands have been left without sustenance, including many children,” national media quoted the religious leader as saying in a prayer. In the Voronezh region, one of the worst hit, officials said the situation was under control and no longer a threat to people and homes. However, new blazes were breaking out in the nearby Mordovia region and around the industrial city of Togliatti. “The threat of new fires has increased sharply due to unfavourable weather in a number of regions,” the Emergencies Ministry said in a statement. “Temperatures [have soared] to up to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and winds of up to 20 metres per second.” Around 5,000 residents in the area have been evacuated as 240,000 emergency workers move in to fight the blazes. Large parts of the country are suffering through their hottest summer since record-keeping began 130 years ago. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the government would allocate 5 billion roubles (£105m) to help fire victims across the country.
