Heaters can't stand minus sixty

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

Is this y2k related? Are we talking decrepit equipment or something else.

4000 Affected As Heaters Can't Handle Minus 60 In Siberia

MOSCOW, Jan 24, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Temperatures sank overnight to minus 60 degrees Celsius (-76 Fahrenheit) in the Siberian city of Srednekolymsk, provoking a heating breakdown that affected more than 4,000 people, ITAR-TASS reported.

Collective heating systems for more than 150 buildings could not handle the deep freeze, the agency quoted a local representative for Russia's emergencies ministry as saying.

On Saturday the thermometer hovered between minus 50 and minus 55 C (minus 58 and minus 67 F) in eastern Siberia's Yukagirskoye region.

The agency said such breakdowns had already occurred in several Siberian cities, and that their populations were systematically evacuated to heated shelters.

The problems stem "in 90 percent of the cases from decrepit equipment, and in 10 percent from poor-quality fuel," a source at the ministry explained. ((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)

http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=128115

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), January 24, 2000


Moderation questions? read the FAQ