Leave the Capital!

The Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM) office for Sverdlovsk Region has made a special appeal to the region’s residents, which it has posted on the agency’s official website.

As our own correspondent reports, the rescue service has warned that adverse weather conditions of the first level of hazardousness have settled over the region until 8 p.m., June 26. During this time, calm weather and high temperatures will facilitate the formation of smog in the air.

Mayors have been advised to closely monitor industrial emissions, and motorists, to abandon the use of private vehicles and switch to public transport. Monitoring of unauthorized waste incineration has been increased.

To date, the rescue service has not recorded levels above the maximum allowable concentration of pollutants in the air. Nevertheless, they have asked the public to take the following precautions.

The public has been advised to leave the city during this time. (The message does not indicate which city. Apparently, Yekaterinburg is meant.) If this is impossible, then people are advised to go outside as little as possible and keep doors and windows closed, and when leaving the house, people should put on a dampened cotton-gauze bandage. After being outside, it is advised to take a shower and change one’s clothes or thoroughly wash up and rinse one’s throat.

As URA.ru has previously reported, a dense smog, due, allegedly, to forest fires in Siberia, has enveloped Yekaterinburg the last several days.

NB. Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city, has an estimated population of one and a half million people. TRR

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Comrade AK for the heads-up. See “Greenpeace Russia: The Far East and Siberia Are Burning,” Russian Reader, May 25, 2016.

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