Russian fires triggered by a record heat wave and drought are burning out of control in a good portion of the country’s eastern territory. Entire villages are destroyed by the flames and as of Aug. 6 the death toll was 48. A thick blanket of smoke suffocated Moscow residents and 4,000 people have been burnt out of their homes. In certain areas, nuclear contamination from the Chernobyl disaster locked up within the trees might be re-released by the fires. The Russian government has come under rare public criticism for being slow and ill-equipped to fight the fires.
Russian fires add to summer of disaster
Russian fires have burned more than 1.6 million acres of land since they began, according to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry. To fight the fires, the government has enlisted more than 155,000 individuals. The Wall Street Journal reports that more than 400 new fires surfaced even as 293 were put out. As of Aug. 6, a total of 520 fires were burning across the country. The record Russian heat wave that started the fires-as well as the Russia’s worst drought in at least 3 decades-shows no sign of letting up. At least until Aug. 12, scorching temperatures will carry on, with some areas hitting up to 107 degrees.
Russian government burned by criticism
Russian fires have also ignited public anger as the government struggles to get the disaster under control. The government’s inability to protect its citizens from both natural and man-made disasters has been brought out within the open, the Financial Times said. a trillion-dollar plus economy driven by energy resources, Russians still chafe under incompetent public officials, poor safety preparation and a deteriorating infrastructure. The lives lost are much higher in Russia than in other 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.
Radioactive smoke could drift across Europe
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. If trees in those areas burn, Philippe Renaud, head of the environmental radiation laboratory at France’s IRSN nuclear safety institute, said the Russian nuclear contamination would be released into the air where it could be a respiratory hazard as far away as France.
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