Several thousand Muscovites are thought to have died in July alone from this year's unprecedented heatwave and August could add more fatalities, a Russian scientist said on Tuesday.
Moscow, a metropolis of over 10 million people, has suffered intense heat since late June, with day temperatures sometimes nearing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The crisis shriveled a third of Russia's grain crop, shaved billions off this year's economic growth and killed at least 54 people in wildfires. 
The heat subsided on Tuesday.
Citing a report by the Moscow Registry Office, Boris Revich, a senior demography and ecology researcher at Russia's Academy of Sciences, said 5,840 more Muscovites had died in July than in the same month last year.
Revich said he believed the overwhelming majority of these additional deaths had been caused by the fierce heatwave.
"This situation was absolutely easy to forecast," he told a news conference. "The only thing I blame myself for ... is that my estimate (of 
deaths) was too low at the start of the heat."
"But we have never had experience estimating such monstrous heat, merely because we had never had such heat before."
The State Statistics Committee (Goskomstat) is due to publish its data on the deaths around August 20, Revich said. Death rate figures for August will be available in September.
Breaking official silence over the effects of the heat and smoke from forest fires which have blanketed Moscow since late July, the head of 
Moscow's health department, Andrei Seltsovsky, said on August 9 that deaths had almost doubled to 700 a day, with heat being the main killer.
Russia's Health Minister Tatyana Golikova, who earlier expressed "bewilderment" at Seltsovsky's figures, said on Tuesday she had asked regional health officials to "analyze in detail" the situation surrounding mortality rates.
"We will (then) be ready to make this information public and deal with all the consequences," Golikova told reporters.
"NATURE'S GRIM EXPERIMENT"
Revich called the data provided by the Moscow Registry Office "absolutely 
reliable," adding he believed most of those who had died from heat were elderly people suffering from cardio-vascular and respiratory diseases.
He said that globally, Russia's heat crisis was not a unique phenomenon; in 2003 an estimated 45,000-50,000 people had died in a severe heatwave in the European Union.
"But what makes the situation in Moscow and other big cities of central Russia different, is this abnormal heat being coupled with a high level of
air pollution as a result of forest fires," Revich said. "Nature set up such a grim experiment on us."
A total of 27,724 fires, including 1,133 at burning peat bogs, have been detected in Russia since July, Emergencies Ministry department chief Yuri Brazhnikov told reporters.
He said the fires had affected a total of 134 villages and towns and 
destroyed some 2,000 homes. Around 1,100 people have been moved to temporary shelters. (Left: Prime Minister Putin talks with elderly woman whose home was consumed by the spreading wildfires).
The weather is set to get colder by the weekend and Moscow's air will get cleaner, but it remains unclear how fast the authorities will take steps to be prepared to fight a similar heatwave in the future.
Moscow ambulances, maternity houses and hospitals are not 
air-conditioned, as well as so-called social centers opened to provide proper shelter from heat to the sick and elderly. Masks and oxygen are in short supply in pharmacies.
"European countries have accumulated vast experience how to act during heat," Revich said. "Regrettably, we are now just on our way to having such a national plan."
Source:
Reuters,"Heat probably killed thousands in Moscow: scientist", accessed August 17, 2010
Fears that fires scorching forests polluted by Chernobyl fallout may propel dangerous amounts of radioactivity into the air are overblown, scientists say, and the actual health risks are very small.
Even firefighters tackling the blazes, which officials say have hit forests in Russia's Bryansk region tainted by radioactive dust from the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster, are unlikely to run any added nuclear contamination risks.
The amount of radiation in smoke would be only a fraction of the original fallout, they say.
"Of the total radioactivity in the area, much less than one percent of it will be remobilized," said Jim Smith, an expert on Chernobyl and a specialist in Earth and Environmental Sciences at Britain's University of Portsmouth.
Radioactive contamination in the area has substantially diminished in the almost two and a half decades since explosions at Chernobyl's 
reactor No. 4 caused the world's worst civil nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986.
"Most of the radioactivity is in the soil, which will not be affected by the fires, and only a small proportion is in the vegetation," Smith said in a telephone interview. "And of that only a very small proportion of that will get re-suspended in the smoke from the fires."
Russia's forest protection agency said on Wednesday that fires covering an area of 39 square kilometers (15 square miles) had been registered in regions with forests polluted with radiation. The regions affected included Bryansk province, which borders Ukraine, southwest of Moscow.
"NEGLIGIBLE" HEALTH RISK
Both France's Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety and Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection said on Thursday that while some radiation was likely to be remobilized in smoke, the health risks were minimal and would have no impact on either Russia or 
neighboring countries.
Maria Neira, the World Health Organization's director of public health and environment said the WHO had data from controlled burning experiments conducted in the region in recent years and these suggested no reason for concern.
"We know from these experiments that the redistribution and re-suspension of radionuclides (radioactive particles) will be negligible for people's health," she stated.
According to experts, the types of radioactive isotopes that might still be active in the Bryansk area include strontium 90 and caesium 137. These substances have half lives of about 30 years, meaning that only about half the radioactive material emitted by Chernobyl is still around now.
France's Institute for Radiation Protection said there may be a slight increase in radioactivity in the nearby environment due to re-suspension of caesium-137, "but it would be very much lower than the natural radioactivity."
Portsmouth's Smith and Stig Husin, an analyst in emergency preparedness at the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, said the main threat from the fires both locally and nationally in Russia was the choking 
smoke from forest and peat fires, and the smog which is clouding the air in Moscow -- all of which can cause lung and heart problems.
"I would be much more concerned about the smog in Moscow and the health impacts of that -- not because of radiation but because of people inhaling harmful air pollution," said Smith.
Husin said those living near the Chernobyl-contaminated areas where fires have been reported would be wise to protect themselves by staying inside or wearing masks.
"Naturally it would be good if you are living close to the fires to protect yourself from the smoke itself. If you do protect yourself then naturally you protect yourself from the radioactive substances that may be in the smoke."
Source:
Reuters, "Few Chernobyl radiation risks from Russia fires", accessed August 13, 2010
Fires have scorched forests contaminated with radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a Russian forestry official said on Wednesday, but it was unclear how dangerous the smoke might be.
Kremlin leaders are already grappling with Russia's deadliest wildfires since 1972 and a drought that has destroyed crops after what weather monitoring officials say was the country's hottest summer in a millennium.
Fears of stirring up nuclear pollution from the Chernobyl 
disaster could take the crisis to a new level, though officials said radiation levels were normal in Moscow and once scientist said the level of risk depended on exactly where the fires were.
"Yes, there have been fires," Vasily Tuzov, deputy director of Russia's forest protection agency, said when asked if there had been fires in forests polluted by the Chernobyl accident, the world's worst civil nuclear disaster.
"Most of them have been extinguished now," Tuzov said.
He refused to give more details about the fires, referring to a statement on the agency's website which said that fires covering 
an area of 39 square kilometers (15 square miles) had been registered in regions with forests polluted with radiation.
The regions affected included Bryansk province, which borders Ukraine southwest of Moscow and was polluted by radioactive dust that billowed across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Europe after a series of explosions at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 on April 26, 1986.
Russian Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said on August 5 that in the event of a fire in forests in the Bryansk region, radioactive particles could be propelled into the air.
Kim Holmen, head of research at the Institute, said trees, other vegetation and the ground had absorbed
some of the nuclear material spewed out in the 1986 accident and blazes were releasing some again into the air.
"The sins of our fathers revisit us," he stated.
"There is a remobilization of Chernobyl (right) material. That is a side of biomass burning that is under-communicated. There is plenty of this still around ... In order to say anything useful about the amounts you have to see where the fires are."
Greenpeace Russia said in a statement that three fires had been registered in badly contaminated forests in the Bryansk region, which was polluted with the nuclear isotope caesium 137.
Radiation levels in the Moscow region were unchanged and within normal limits on Thursday, said on Yelena Popova, the head of Moscow's radiation monitoring center.
Asked whether fires in the areas contaminated by Chernobyl could bring radioactive particles in the Moscow region, she said 
the risk was still "theoretical."
"There is a possibility that winds could bring contaminated air from Kaluga or Tula regions if major fires erupt there," she said, referring to two Russian provinces a little under 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Moscow that were also polluted by Chernobyl.
"But our monitoring stations have not registered any increase in such activity so far," she said.
MOSCOW SMOKE CLEARS
The wildfires have killed at least 54 people in Russia.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she had called Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday to express solidarity with Russia over the crisis.
Strong winds cleared the toxic smoke that has choked Moscow for three weeks on Wednesday, but weather forecasters warned it could return in 24 hours.
The heat and smoke in Moscow -- which sent pollution levels to the highest levels in decades -- almost doubled mortality rates in the capital and disrupted flights, consumer activity and even trading in Russian stocks and bonds. (Left: People wait for a bus at a bus stop in the partially destroyed by fire village of Kriushi, some 50 km (31 miles) north of Ryazan,)
Muscovites got a glimpse of clear skies on Wednesday after a thunderstorm accompanied by strong winds in the early hours dispersed the smoke. Some young Russians rejoiced in the rains, dancing in the downpour and cheering the thunder and lightning.
The Emergencies Ministry said the area of burning forests in Russia had almost halved in the past 24 hours to 927 square km (358 square miles) from 1,740 square km (676 square miles), and that nearly 166,000 people were fighting more than 600 fires.
"As soon as there is windless weather again, the smoke will return," Roman Vilfand, the director of the state weather forecasting center, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
A prominent scientist said hundreds of people could die as smog from peat fires blanketed a sweltering Moscow for a second day on Tuesday.
Moscow region chief Boris Gromov asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to allocate 25 billion roubles ($827 million) to fight the 
fires smoldering in the forests around Moscow.
Alexei Yablokov, an internationally renowned biologist who runs Russia's Green Party, said air pollution caused by the smog's high amount of carbon dioxide could kill hundreds more people than usual in the Moscow region.
"There will be at least 100 additional deaths per day this time round," Yablokov stated, referring to the last such smog cloud in 2002 in which he calculated 600 people had died each week.
Russia's senior public health official suggested on Tuesday 
employers free their staff while the thick smog and record-breaking heat in the Russian capital surged.
"Employers, if there is a possibility, could allow people to not come to work," Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia's health 
Peat, used in the past to produce heat and electricity, smolders deep underground in winters and summers. Gromov said the only solution to the fires was to pour water over deposits.
"According to preliminary estimates, only in one district where fires are now most severe, over 4.5 billion roubles is needed. We have five such districts," Gromov told Putin during an emergency video conference.
Putin said he would ask the emergency and economy ministries to examine the request.
The emergencies ministry said that in the last 24 hours there had appeared 58 new fires in the Moscow region, 30 of them at peat deposits.
Source:
Reuters,,"Scientist says hundreds may die as smog blankets Moscow", accessed July 28, 2010
Several thousand Muscovites are thought to have died in July alone from this year's unprecedented heatwave and August could add more fatalities, a Russian scientist said on Tuesday.
The heat subsided on Tuesday.
deaths) was too low at the start of the heat."
Moscow's health department, Andrei Seltsovsky, said on August 9 that deaths had almost doubled to 700 a day, with heat being the main killer.
reliable," adding he believed most of those who had died from heat were elderly people suffering from cardio-vascular and respiratory diseases.
air pollution as a result of forest fires," Revich said. "Nature set up such a grim experiment on us."
destroyed some 2,000 homes. Around 1,100 people have been moved to temporary shelters. (Left: Prime Minister Putin talks with elderly woman whose home was consumed by the spreading wildfires).
air-conditioned, as well as so-called social centers opened to provide proper shelter from heat to the sick and elderly. Masks and oxygen are in short supply in pharmacies.
