Cold as Christmas: Emergency in Siberia, chilliest night in Moscow
The coldest ever December has rolled through Russia causing the evacuation of hundreds of people in Siberia, where temperature hit below -50C, and plunging Moscow into its coldest night in the season. Will Christmas lift the frosty spell?
The
cold weather that has Russia in its icy embrace has been causing all
kinds of havoc. Flights and buses delayed and cancelled, many schools
have been closed, and there have been power outages just when power
is most needed.
In
the town of Kyshtym, the Urals, 14,000 people are still waiting for
the central heating to be restored. On Sunday a break in the central
pipe left residents anxiously watching the red line on their home
thermometers plunging as temperatures outside slid to -24C (-11F).
Just
over the Urals, a state of emergency has been declared and over 2,800
people were evacuated from the village of Khovu-Aksy, the Republic of
Tyva, temperatures there a lethal -38C (-36F). A helicopter was sent
to pick up kids and women. Two days into the emergency, authorities
are frantically repairing central heating pipes while most of the
evacuees are staying with their relatives.
More than 90 Russians have died and more than 600 people have been taken to hospital due to the extremely hostile weather, which is 10 degrees below the December norm.
The stubborn anticyclone, which sent thermometers sinking below -50 degrees Celsius (-58F) in some parts of Russia over the past ten days, will be pushed away by Christmas, meteorologists say. But this will hold true only for the European part of the country – Siberia and other regions to the east will still be violently shivering till the end of the week. Yakutia, which makes up the bigger part of Russia’s Far East, is set face frosts down to -54C (-65F).
XmasElf@XmasElf
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in Russia - The reindeer love the cold - it makes them go faster!
25 Dec 12
More than 90 Russians have died and more than 600 people have been taken to hospital due to the extremely hostile weather, which is 10 degrees below the December norm.
The stubborn anticyclone, which sent thermometers sinking below -50 degrees Celsius (-58F) in some parts of Russia over the past ten days, will be pushed away by Christmas, meteorologists say. But this will hold true only for the European part of the country – Siberia and other regions to the east will still be violently shivering till the end of the week. Yakutia, which makes up the bigger part of Russia’s Far East, is set face frosts down to -54C (-65F).
A
woman walks past trees covered with heavy hoarfrost and snow on the
bank of the Yenisei River, with the air temperature at about minus 26
degrees Celsius (minus 14.8 degrees Fahrenheit), outside Russia's
Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk, December 24, 2012. (Reuters / Ilya
Naymushin)
View of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, Moscow. (RIA Novosti / Kirill Kallinikov)
Police patrol in downtown Moscow on December 22, 2012. (RIA Novosti / Alexsey Nichukchin)
A woman walks with a dog on the embankment of a river, with the air temperature at about minus 23 degrees Celsius (minus 9.4 degrees Fahrenheit), in Moscow, December 24, 2012. (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)
Pedestrians in Tomsk's Lenin Avenue on December 23, 2012. (RIA Novosti / Yakov Andreev)
A worker breathes in the open air as he lays a cable, with the air temperature at about minus 23 degrees Celsius (minus 9.4 degrees Fahrenheit), in Moscow, December 24, 2012. (Reuters / Maxim Shemetov)
Father Frost arrives at Vasilyevsky Island Spit to light the New Year tree in St Petersburg. (RIA Novosti / Anna Volkova)
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