IANS7 August 2010 Visibility in some parts of Moscow dropped to below 50 metres and air pollution reached more than six times normal levels Saturday, as Russia battled more than 300 new wildfires in a span of 24 hours alone, the Interfax news agency reported. Most of the new fires were rapidly extinguished, the Civil […]
By Richard Galpin, BBC6 August 2010 Russian health officials are warning people in Moscow to stay inside and avoid physical exertion as smog from the worst wildfires in modern Russian history smothers the city. Haze and smoke are spreading through Moscow’s streets, even seeping into the Metro network, and some people are wearing face masks […]
By Richard Galpin6 August 2010 The thick blanket of smog that has shrouded Moscow as peat fires continue to burn just outside the city has worsened. The smog has disrupted air traffic at two international airports in Moscow – Domodedovo and Vnukovo. Many Russians are wearing masks as the temperature rises close to 40C (104F). […]
By Ekaterina Shatalova and Maria Kolesnikova Aug 6, 2010 6:57 AM PT Acrid smoke from forest and peat-bog fires east of Moscow shrouded the city in smoke, causing flight delays and raising pollution to “very dangerous” levels. As many as 140 flights were delayed today as visibility at the capital’s airports was reduced to as […]
By CATHY ALEXANDERAugust 3, 2010 – 5:54PM (AAP) Cities may need “cool refuges” as climate change brings heat waves and the risk of mass casualties, engineers warn. They’ve raised the prospect of vulnerable people – including the elderly and the sick – heading into air-conditioned shopping malls to survive, possibly at night. The Australian Academy […]
By ANDREW E. KRAMERPublished: August 5, 2010 MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin banned all exports of grain on Thursday after millions of acres of Russian wheat withered in a severe drought, driving up prices around the world and pushing them to their highest level in two years in the United States. The move […]
By Shaun Walker in Mokhovoye Thursday, 5 August 2010 “All around us, everything was on fire,” says Vladimir Anuryev. “Houses, trees, the ground itself – it was all in flames. Even the asphalt on the road seemed to be on fire. It was like descending into hell.” The 73-year-old has lived in Mokhovoye, a village […]
Hundreds of fires burned across western Russia on August 2, 2010, but it is the smoke that conveys the magnitude of the disaster in this true-color image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Dense gray-brown smoke extends across the width of this image, a distance of about 1,700 kilometers (1,000 […]
By Simon Shuster / MoscowMonday, Aug. 02, 2010 Russians are not used to heat waves. When the high temperatures that have overwhelmed Russia over the past six weeks first arrived in June, some 1,200 Russians drowned at the country’s beaches. “The majority of those who drowned were drunk,” the Emergencies Ministry concluded in mid-July, citing […]
By TERENCE ROTH in London and WILLIAM MAULDIN in MoscowAUGUST 3, 2010, 9:12 A.M. ET The scorching temperatures and dry skies threatening Russia’s wheat harvests have also been beating down on Western Europe, which is forecasting lower output of crops from French wheat to Italian tomatoes. Russia’s Agriculture Ministry Tuesday cut its forecast for the […]
