The death rate in Moscow has doubled as wildfires have blanketed the capital with toxic smoke amid Russia's worst heatwave in over a century, Interfax cited the city's health department chief as saying today.
Alexander Seltsovsky said today that deaths had almost doubled to 700 daily, with heat being the main killer, according to the agency.
The Health Ministry criticised Mr Seltsovsky, saying it was "bewildered by these unofficial figures" and that Moscow's death rates had actually fallen in January-June.
Health Minister Tatyana Golikova told a news conference that the heavy smog with the severe heat was "a real test" indeed for Moscow's residents with vascular and heart diseases. But she said she had no data about a rise in Moscow's death rates.
Moscow was veiled with acrid smoke for a fourth straight day as persistent heat continued to fuel forest and peat fires that officials say have killed 52 people across European Russia since late July.
Morgues are overflowing and one crematorium in the Russian capital is working around the clock in three shifts, according to staff, even as the health ministry disputes Mr Seltsovsky's statement that the monthly death toll doubled in July.
In Mitino on Moscow's northwest, a note at a crematorium warned that it was not accepting any new orders for cremation. The crematorium's four furnaces are currently "processing" 49 bodies per day, with cremations every 20 minutes, according to a timetable available at the reception.
As the scorching heat sets new temperature records almost daily and a thick acrid smog from forest fires chokes the giant city of over 10 million, the question of the real number of heat-induced deaths has become a political issue for Muscovites.
Official data show at least 52 people have died in severe fires raging in parts of European Russia in the past few weeks. But there are no statistics referring to Moscow, amid some media reports that the city's paramedics are told not to include "heat stroke" in death records "to avoid panic".
An unnamed doctor at a Moscow clinic wrote on his Internet site over the weekend that he was wary of diagnosing patients with eat and smoke-related illnesses for fear of dismissal.
Another doctor at a major hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters yesterday that senior management had instructed staff not to link patients' illnesses with the heat.
Reuters