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MOSCOW (The Associated Press) - Jan 24 - By HENRY MEYER
Associated Press Writer
Trolleybuses and trams returned to full operation in Moscow on Tuesday as the Arctic cold that has blanketed Russia for the past nine days slowly retreated. Moscow temperatures warmed to minus 14 C (7 F), allowing electric-powered public transport to operate fully in Moscow. The relative warmth was a major contrast to last Thursday's minus 31 C (minus 24 F). Forecasts say temperatures in Moscow could warm to as high as minus 4 C (25 F) by the weekend. This winter has been the coldest in the capital since 1978-1979, when temperatures reached minus 38 C (minus 36 F). Russians have been turning to electric radiators and other supplemental heaters to keep warm, driving electricity use to record highs. The head of Russia's electricity monopoly said that, despite the thaw, many apartments would take awhile to heat up again. Anatoly Chubais also canceled his attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, because of the continued problems facing RAO United Energy Systems, of which he is chief executive. "Across Russia, the situation remains difficult," he said in televised comments, adding that the company on Monday recorded a high of 150,300 megawatts in electricity consumed. "The temperatures are getting better, but there is a rather treacherous effect ... a gradual dropping of temperatures inside buildings," Chubais said. In Moscow, rescue workers found one person dead, ITAR-Tass quoted the city health department said as saying, bringing the number of deaths in Moscow to 28 during the big freeze. Nineteen people were hospitalized with hypothermia, the department said. More than 7,000 people in eight Russian towns and villages were without heating on Tuesday because of ruptured hot-water pipes, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, meanwhile, millions of Georgians remained without gas Tuesday for the third day in freezing winter temperatures because of gas shortages that followed pipeline blasts in a southern Russian region neighboring Georgia. Russian engineers said that heavy winds, bitter cold and leaking gases were hampering efforts to repair a pipeline that transports Russian gas to Georgia. A series of explosions blamed on sabotage destroyed the pipeline on Sunday, and Tbilisi's West-leaning government has charged that Moscow deliberately caused the blasts as well as an explosion at an electricity-transmission tower in a neighboring region. Russia, which has denied the accusations, has piped alternative gas supplies to Georgia from Azerbaijan, but the Georgian energy minister said Tuesday the country was currently getting only around 35 percent of its usual gas volumes from Russia. A full resumption of gas deliveries was not expected for several days. In neighboring Ukraine, about 60,000 people in the city of Alchevsk were temporarily left without heat early Tuesday, following the rupture of hot-water pipes. The Health Ministry also said that 26 people died of the cold on Monday alone, raising the death toll in Ukraine over the last three days to 80. ___ Associated Press reporters Natasha Lisova in Kiev, Ukraine, and Misha Dzhindzhikashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, contributed to this report. |