Burning Russia battles to defend nuke sites
Russia fought a deadly battle yesterday to prevent wildfires from engulfing key nuclear sites as alarm mounted over the impact on health of a toxic smoke cloud that has shrouded Moscow.
Two soldiers were killed by blazing trees as they strove to put out a fire dangerously close to Russia's main nuclear research centre, while workers were also mobilised to fight blazes near a nuclear reprocessing plant.
After almost two weeks of fires that have claimed over 50 lives and even part destroyed a military storage site, the authorities said they were making progress in fighting fires that still covered 174,035 hectares of land
"A positive dynamic in liquidating the wildfires continues to be observed," said the head of the emergencies ministry's crisis unit, Vladimir Stepanov.
"The numbers (of emergency workers) have been increased in those regions where there is a difficult situation with the fires," he added.
The emergencies ministry said that over the last 24 hours, 247 new fires had appeared, more than the 239 had been put out, and 557 fires were still raging across the affected region.
Two members of the Russian armed forces were killed Monday fighting wildfires around Russia's main nuclear research centre in Sarov, a town in the Nizhny Novgorod region still closed to foreigners as in Soviet times.
Rifle battalion commander Vasily Tezetev, 22, "died the death of a hero" Monday while dealing with the fire burning in a nature reserve close to the town, the local emergency centre said, Interfax reported.
Another serviceman, named as Vasily Veshkin, 27, who usually worked at a local prison camp, also died fighting the fire on the same day, it added. Both were killed when they were hit by burning parts of trees that fell to the ground.
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