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Russia’s leaders
declared a state of emergency on Monday in seven provinces and ordered
authorities to guard weapons storage facilities from wildfires that
have killed at least 40 people.

Thousands more have
lost their homes to blazes stoked by Russia’s worst heatwave since the
tsarist era. The heat has parched crops in one of the world’s largest
grain exporting nations, helping drive global grain prices to 22-month
highs.

“Many families have
nothing left — the flames destroyed everything,” President Dmitry
Medvedev said in a sober announcement on state television. “It is a
huge tragedy.” With little relief expected this week, he urged Russians
to take care in tinder-dry forests and fields, warning that “every
match tossed away could lead to irreparable disaster.” Medvedev’s
emergency decree covered European Russian regions from Voronezh in the
south to several Volga River areas and the densely populated province
ringing Moscow.

A blanket of acrid
smog covered the sweltering capital itself, worsening the woes of
Muscovites gasping in Russia’s hottest weather since record-keeping
began around 1880. Some wore facemasks to filter the air they breathed.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered authorities to protect weapons sites, power plants and other vital facilities.

“The last thing we
need is for arms stores to fall into this zone (affected by fires),”
Putin said at a meeting with emergency officials and governors of
affected regions.

Authorities said
they had increased the number of firefighters near an iconic nuclear
research centre by tenfold, but a spokesman for Russia’s state nuclear
corporation Rosatom, Sergei Novikov, said the centre was not currently
in danger.

The facility at
Sarov in the Nizhny Novgorod province around 350 kilometres (220 miles)
east of Moscow was a top-secret location in Soviet times codenamed
Arzamas-16, where the first Soviet atom and hydrogen bombs were
designed.

“At the present
time, all the fires around (the centre) have been put out so there is
no threat to the nuclear centre,” Novikov said.

“There may be a threat of further fires from the south but special groups are prepared for that contingency.”

Reconstruction

Putin warned that
small blazes in areas where fires have been extinguished could be
whipped up by winds and spread again. “Everything must be put out,”
Putin said.

Putin is still
widely seen as Russia’s top leader after steering Medvedev into the
presidency in 2008 and is eager to retain his popularity ahead of
elections in the next two years. He chided regional officials and
demanded detailed accounts of plans to fight the fires and compensate
the victims.

“You know what
citizens are saying: ‘Yes, we call (the authorities), but they hang up
on us — nobody wants to talk,” Putin said at the meeting, shown in
part on state television.

He ordered
governors to report to him with timelines for the construction of
housing, demanding information about “every region, every town, every
home.” Medvedev said all those who have lost their homes must have
roofs over their heads before winter.

Putin said
compensation and reconstruction was expected to cost 5 billion roubles
(103.8 million pounds). It will all come from the state budget because
very few Russian households have insurance.

He also called for
plans to prevent such losses from wildfires in the future. More people
die per capita in household fires in Russia than in most Western
nations because of poor infrastructure, flouting of safety rules and
negligence.

Nearly 700
wildfires were burning on Monday over 1,210 square kilometres (750
square miles) of land, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Situations
Ministry told Reuters.

The death toll rose from 28 people on Sunday to 40 on Monday, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Reuters