Moscow
on 'strict' energy conservation as freeze deepens
AFP
MOSCOW
Petroleumworld.com 01 18 06
Moscow switched to a "strict" energy conservation program
Wednesday and another two people froze to death as overnight temperatures
plunged below minus 30 C (minus 22 F) in the capital and to substantially
colder levels elsewhere in the country.
Students at state primary schools were allowed to stay home at
parents' discretion and the stalwart Kremlin ceremonial guard
service said it may halve shifts around the eternal flame at the
foot of the Kremlin walls to 30 minutes because of the cold.
Another two people died of hypothermia on the streets of Moscow
and 15 others were hospitalized as a result of exposure to the
cold, Interfax news agency said, while forecasters said temperatures
would drop even further in the coming days.
Television news broadcast footage of homeless people crouched
or sprawled over steam vents or huddling in entrances to train
stations to keep warm and ITAR-TASS news agency said around 40
trolley buses stalled overnight in Moscow as a result of the freezing
temperatures.
More than 200 factories in the Moscow area were informed Tuesday
they would have their power cut to conserve energy and the business
daily Vedomosti said that from Wednesday Moscow "is switching
to a strict energy conservation regime."
This would mean targeted power cutbacks to various businesses
as well as turning off electricity for billboard advertisements,
casinos and gaming halls housed in buildings adorned with piles
of neon lights and at construction sites that use powerful floodlights
for nightime work.
Prior to announcement of the latest two deaths in Moscow, officials
said that eight people died Tuesday throughout Russia as a result
of the frigid weather, caused when Arctic air from Siberia swept
over the western "European" part of Russia where most
of the country's population is.
In Russia's Volga region, six people drowned when the ice broke
under a minibus that was crossing a frozen river near the city
of Nizhny Novgorod. The minibus was driving on the ice at a point
normally passable in the summer.
"There were 15 people in the vehicle, nine managed to escape
and six drowned," an official with the emergency ministry
told the Interfax news agency.
State-controled gas monopoly Gazprom warned power companies throughout
the European part of Russia that it might have to reduce gas deliveries
by up to 50 percent because of the cold, a spokesman for Russia's
power grid RAO EES, Margarita Nagoga, told Interfax.
The MFB stock exchange, a secondary bourse that rents space in
a building from another firm, suspended trading early on Tuesday
after being among those warned of a possible power shortfall.
AFP
01/17/06
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© 2006 AFP. All rights reserved
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