SEVERE FROSTS IN SIBERIA

Terrible frosts set in several days ago to destroy heating networks in many Siberian settlements. A 2,000-populated military town stayed without heating in the Moskovsky district, Novosibirsk Region, West Siberia. More than 30% of residents moved out to stay with friends and relations in nearby settlements. The rest have received metal stoves and a stock of firewood from army depots. The federal Ministry for Emergency Situations sent rescue teams to the military town from neighbouring localities. Rescuers have unfrozen and are repairing the local steam pipe network, five kilometres long, RIA Novosti reports. Similar works are underway in Borzya town, Chita Region in East Siberia, where more than 2,500 residents have no heating at home. An emergency electric substation was installed to heat residential houses. Gas supplies to residential areas often stop in Irkutsk, provincial and industrial centre in East Siberia. Experts blame inferior-quality gas, whose humidity causes pipes to freeze. The disastrous frost is subsiding throughout Siberia, reassure weather people.