Russia's Record-Breaking Heatwave Comes to Dramatic End

Russia 's record-breaking heatwave looks set to come to a dramatic end, with a severe storm now heading for Moscow after battering St Petersburg.

Photo: Russia's Record-Breaking Heatwave Comes to Dramatic End

Nearly 100,000 people around St Petersburg were left without power, rail services were halted and trees felled amid high winds and heavy rains. Moscow is expected to be hit later. Temperatures there dropped to 25C on Monday after nearing 40C for weeks, BBC News says.

The storms yesterday in four regions, including the Leningrad region around St. Petersburg, packed winds as high as 30 meters per second (67 mph), the Emergency Situations Ministry said on its website today. Almost 79,000 people still had no electricity at 6 a.m. local time, and all customers should have power back by 8 p.m., the ministry said.

The area of active fires in central Russia “significantly decreased” in the last 24 hours, said Vladimir Stepanov, head of the ministry’s crisis center. Crews reduced the fire area by 8,000 hectares to 45,800 hectares in the period, according to the ministry, Bloomberg reports.