Russia still burns as flash floods hit central Europe

COUNTRIES IN central and eastern Europe are suffering contrasting weather woes, as Russia continues to fight crippling wildfires while deadly flash floods strike Poland and the Czech Republic.

At least 52 people have died in Russia’s worst drought in decades. It has sparked hundreds of wildfires that have devastated almost 200,000 hectares of land, forcing the government to ban grain exports until the end of the year.

Temperatures in Moscow reached a record 34.7 Celsius yesterday, and the city was again blanketed in choking smog from the burning forests and peat bogs that surround it.

Flights were disrupted by the thick smoke and many Muscovites sought air or rail tickets out of the city, while those who remained were advised to stay indoors and to wear face masks if they ventured outside.

Pressure is increasing on officials at all levels over their handling of the crisis and an apparent lack of plans and equipment to deal with the wildfires.

Prime minister Vladimir Putin has appeared regularly on national television to give pep talks to firefighters and to upbraid local leaders, but he has also been criticised for supporting laws that have reduced state control over Russia’s forests and left them poorly protected against wildfires.

Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov finally returned to the city yesterday after being absent on holiday as fires raged around its perimeter and the noxious smog thickened.

His spokesman claimed he had been undergoing treatment for an unspecified sports injury.

Opposition parties have slammed the government’s response to the extreme heat and fires, and some critics have accused it of playing down the number of resultant deaths and serious illnesses. Russian media quoted one blog purportedly written by a Moscow doctor who claimed that he and his colleagues feared dismissal if they revealed the full extent of the fires’ health impact.

Experts said the concentration of airborne pollutants in Moscow was three times higher than normal levels. The city opened more than 100 special air-conditioned rooms in official buildings to allow locals to “get their breath back”.

The emergencies ministry said the major nuclear facility in the closed city of Sarov was now safe, after soldiers dug an 8km-long canal to protect it from forest fires. Two prisons were also set for evacuation as fires bore down upon them.

As Russia burned, swathes of central Europe were battling heavy rain and flash floods. At least 10 people died and several others were missing as rivers burst their banks in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany.

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes, road and rail transport was heavily disrupted and power supplies were severed in many parts of the region.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk promised that people affected by the weekend’s floods would receive the same compensation as those who suffered during May and June, when more than 20 Poles died during another inundation.

Four people in neighbouring Lithuania were also killed at the weekend in violent storms.