Smoke from Russian fires blankets Moscow

[Jan Klimkowski]

:hmmmm2:

Photogallery here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/...91&index=0

Smoke from Russian fires blankets Moscow

Landmarks reduced to outlines in thick pollution and visibility down to 50 metres in some areas

A thick acrid smog enveloped Moscow today as scores of fires blazed and peat bogs smouldered outside the city.

Emergency officials said they were beginning to tame the fires which have spread across western and central Russia, but the capital woke to its worst bout of pollution yet after smog that dispersed yesterday returned with a vengeance.

Famous landmarks like the Ostankino television tower and St Basil's cathedral were reduced to outlines and the sun was a pale yellow orb. Visibility was down to 50 metres in some areas as coils of pungent smoke threaded into apartment buildings, offices and metro stations. Dozens of flights were cancelled at Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports in the south of the city.

Doctors advised Muscovites to stay home as the Department of Nature Protection and Environmental Management warned that carbon monoxide in the air was at five times acceptable levels.

Many of those who did venture out wore masks or clutched handkerchiefs to their faces. "It's unbearable, God knows what it's doing to our health," said Yulia Novikova, 25, who was hurrying home with groceries in Frunzenskaya district near the Moscow river. "I was just reading about the Great Smog of London in 1952. This looks a lot worse."

Vladimir Stepanov of the National Crisis Management Centre said fires were abating in the Urals and in the Volga region, but the situation remained tense around Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. "Firefighters and rescuers did not let the fires approach populated areas," he said. "Not a single person has died over the past 24 hours."

The wildfires have so far claimed 50 lives and left more than 3,000 people homeless, prompting criticism of the official response to the crisis.

Earlier this week the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, promised he would personally monitor the reconstruction of destroyed homes via video images beamed to his home. State television showed the cameras being installed at building sites today.

Government officials said they could not have anticipated the heatwave that provoked the fires, the hottest in 140 years. The temperature in Moscow was above 36C all week. But critics have blamed complacent officials for ignoring warnings of blazes near villages.

United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party which dominates parliament, has boasted of sending volunteers to help extinguish the fires. But that claim was thrown into doubt yesterday when the party was accused of doctoring a photograph placed on its website.

A sharp-eyed blogger noticed that the picture showing volunteers apparently wrestling with a piece of timber in a smoky wood had been created in 2008 and altered in Photoshop last Saturday. The smoke, he claimed, had been added for effect.

United Russia immediately removed the picture but did not respond to requests for comment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug...res-moscow