Emergency Services Eliminate the Consequences of a Severe Winter Blizzard

Emergency workers are working hard to eliminate the consequences of a severe winter blizzard that had been holding Sakhalin under blockade for three days. In the town of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the stringent restrictions on private car transit have been enforced for four days, now. According to head of local administration Fyodor Sidorenko, the same regime will continue for another two days at least.

The private car transit would resume only after the emergency services clear up the major thoroughfares in the town. The works on clearing high snow banks are underway 24 hours a day.

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk where the snowfall had been the heaviest during last three days and also four nearby districts of the island - Nevelski, Kholmski, Dolinski, Makarovski - are still considered emergency zones.

Road traffic in those areas is prohibited without a special permission of the regional committee for emergency situations. The only exceptions are emergency and rescue vehicles, ambulances and other special vehicles.

The traffic ban has been introduced in order to expedite the works on clearing high snow banks and snowdrifts.

Overall, the emergency services will have to clear up thousands and thousands of kilometers of heavily traveled roads on Sakhalin.

Only in the Nevelski district, 11 mountain avalanches were registered. Long stretches of roads are buried under heavy snow cover.