Russia: Thousands of firefighters and soldiers fighting fires

Tens of thousands of firefighters supported by the Russian army fought Saturday against the forest fires that were thirty dead and devastated entire villages in the western part of the country affected by an unprecedented heat wave.

With more than 120,000 acres on fire, hundreds of homes scattered over thousands of kilometers, and according to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations almost 240,000 men, 25,000 vehicles and 226 airplanes and helicopters mobilized, the magnitude of the disaster and efforts should be nationwide.

"This is a true natural disaster that happens every 30 or 40 years", said Saturday the president Dmitry Medvedev, receiving the report of the Minister of Defence Anatoly Serdyukov on efforts by the military.

The Kremlin has mobilized the army Friday against the magnitude of the fires, exacerbated in recent days by winds that have drastically increased the speed of propagation.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations has reported a balance of 28 dead at this time, with 7 in the Moscow region. The statement made earlier by AFP from various local sources amounted to about thirty people.

The fire did the most damage in the central and Volga Basin, east and south-east of Moscow.

Rossiya television said, people from the suburbs of Togliatti, a city of nearly one million people a thousand miles southeast of Moscow, "prepare to evacuate, while a thick fumes containing ash emanating from nearby forests.

Two thousand people were evacuated Friday from a holiday village near this city, according to the agency Ria Novosti.

The channel Rossiya showed pine large fire with a blow in a huge fireball. His pictures showed firefighters also overwhelmed by the situation despite the support of residents, and water drops by air.

"The forest was burning with the wind, I saw that the houses would be spending, so I plugged the pump in my tank. My neighbor's house was engulfed in flames, and began to extinguish but the fire went to that house, then this one, to that one, "he told stood among the smoking ruins, a resident of the suburbs of Voronezh (600 km southeast of Moscow) Images by Rossia.

In this region, nearly 10,000 children who were in camps who have been evacuated, according to Itar-Tass.

A Nizhny Novgorod, 440 km east of the capital, the airport has had to turn the aircraft to landing because of smoke and ash suspended in the air, which also hampered the use of devices Water bombers.

Meteorological services include maintenance in the coming days of drought and heat wave, with temperatures still reach 40 degrees Celsius in some areas.

The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said keep the situation "under control". But a spokesman admitted that the situation remained "difficult" in the central, Volga and Ural, where in 24 hours over 30,000 hectares were burned.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has estimated 5 billion rubles (128 million euros) the cost at that time of forest fires.

Patriarch Cyril, called not to divert the "sacred money" financial assistance to victims, in an allusion to corruption and embezzlement of public funds are an epidemic in Russia.

In the churches of the Voronezh region, prayers will be sung in the days to come for "the gift of rain," he also said the local Orthodox church, quoted by Interfax.