Smoke from Russian fires blankets Moscow

[Peikko 1,575]

A woman wears a mask in central Moscow to protect herself from smog caused by fires outside the city. Photograph: Mikhail Voskresensky/Reuters 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.

Link

[slim 1,533]

Some non-photoshopped pics - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38486648/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1

[Ban Hammer 14,301]

the title had me confused, i thought smoke was from oklahoma.

[Nagishkaw 510]

the title had me confused, i thought smoke was from oklahoma.

[Ban Hammer 14,301]

apparently there's a smoke from russia around here somewhere too.

[Chris_Жанна 11]

apparently there's a smoke from russia around here somewhere too.

Cheech and Chong are making movie in Russia????

[Ban Hammer 14,301]

Cheech and Chong are making movie in Russia????

up in rubles?

[Chris_Жанна 11]

up in rubles?

lol

[peejay 327]

When I visited my inlaws in the Chita region of Siberia in summer 2009 there were numerous forest fires raging there. They told me it was an annual event and that the magnitude depended on how wet the summer was. We drove down roads on the way to my wife's home village with flames burning along both sides of the road. Kind of spooky. Not to mention the irritation to the respiratory system. Some days the wind blew the smoke away from us and other days the haze was unbearable.

[slim 1,533]

They told me it was an annual event and that the magnitude depended on how wet the summer was.

"It is natural process."

The amount of sh!t Russians (and FSU) will put up with is amazing to me.