In a great portion of Russian territory, fires triggered by a record heat wave and drought are burning out of control. Entire villages have burned to the ground and also the death toll was 48 as of Aug. 6. The wildfires smothered Moscow under a thick blanket of smoke and have left 4,000 individuals homeless. In certain areas, nuclear contamination from the Chernobyl disaster locked up in the trees might be re-released by the fires. Russian government agencies, slow and poorly equipped to fight the fires, are receiving a rare dose of criticism.
Add fires to the heat wave and drought ravaging Russia
Russian fires have burned more than 1.6 million acres of land since they started, as outlined by the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry. To fight the fires, the government has enlisted more than 155,000 people. The Wall Street Journal reports that more than 400 new fires emerged even as 293 were put out. As of Aug. 6, a total of 520 fires were burning across the country. The record heat wave that started the Russian fires, plus its worst drought in at least 30 years aren’t letting up. Scorching heat will continue on until at least Aug. 12, with temperatures in some parts of the country as high 107 degrees.
Heat is on Russian government
Public anger reached the boiling point as the Russian government struggled to get the fires under control. The Financial Times reports that the Russian fires underscore the Russian government’s inability to protect its citizens from both natural and man-made disasters. Despite soaring energy revenues that have transformed it into a country with a trillion-dollar plus economy, Russia nevertheless suffers from flawed governance, a slapdash approach to safety and a dilapidated infrastructure. Nikolay Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Centre told the Times that the death toll is much higher in Russia than in other nations where such fires occur since the system is “absolutely dysfunctional”. Petrov said communication was far too slow within the “super-centralized” political system put in place under Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.
Europeans threaten by nuclear contamination from fires
Nuclear contamination is an additional threat posed by Russian fires. In certain areas of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, AFP reports, that radioactive cesium 137 from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is locked up in the trees and dead leaves in forests. 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 to the air where it could be a respiratory hazard as far away as France.
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