Three days at minimum will be required to clear snow from Moscow streets

It will take three days at a minimum to clear Moscow of the snow, Moscow vice-mayor Valery Shantsev told journalists on Saturday. According to his estimates, "the situation in the city is far from simple". "This concerns especially backyards where snow-clearing equipment cannot reach," said Shantsev, calling on city-dwellers "to join in the effort of clearing the backyards".

While on ordinary winter days, the city usually has 6,500 units of equipment operating on the streets, "in the past three days their number has been increased to 9,500. The 20-centimeter-deep snow is being removed by 993 snow-clearing vehicles, 870 chemical spreaders, 1,043 loading units, 3,500 dump-up trucks and large numbers of pavement cleaners.

All in all, over the past 24 hours, by the middle of January 4, snow-melting centers handled 200,000 cubic meters of snow, a record since the beginning of the winter.