Planes were diverted from Moscow airports today after huge peat and forest fires blanketed the capital in acrid smoke, forcing some businesses to close and office workers to wear surgical masks at their desks.
Pollution surged to five times normal levels in the city of 10.5 million, the highest sustained contamination since Russia's worst heatwave in more than a century began a month ago. Officials urged Muscovites to not venture outdoors.
"Today's smoke level is the worst yet," said Alexei Popikov, an expert on air quality at Moscow's state-run pollution monitoring agency.
The famous onion domes of St Basil's cathedral were not visible from the other end of Red Square this morning because of the dense smoke. Nasa satellite images showed a 3,000 km-long smoke cloud covering European Russia.
The deadliest wildfires in nearly four decades have killed at least 50 people and left thousands homeless as entire villages of wooden houses burned down. Russia has also announced a temporary ban on grain exports after crops were ravaged.
Despite a huge effort involving 150,000 people fighting fires, authorities appeared to be losing the battle. The size of peat fires burning in the Moscow region has almost doubled since yesterday, the regional branch of the emergencies ministry said on its website.
The emergency has prompted the country's enfeebled opposition to complain of poor fire safety readiness and a slow, inefficient government response.
Prime minister Vladimir Putin has toured fire-stricken regions promising generous compensation to residents and ordering officials to step up efforts to extinguish the blazes.
The government has warned that the blazes could pose a nuclear threat by releasing into the atmosphere radioactive particles buried in trees and plants from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The smoke will not clear for at least three days, according to Fobos weather agency, which provides forecasts for some of Russia's largest media outlets. Moscow temperatures reached 33 degrees C today and have touched the high 30s.
A spokeswoman for Russia's biggest airport Domodedovo said 15 planes had been diverted to other airports in Russia after visibility fell to around 400 metres. She said it was up to the crew to decide whether to land.
Russia's aviation authority said at least 60 planes had been diverted to as far away as Ukraine from Moscow's busy airports. Flights and trains out of Moscow were booked solid as residents tried to flee the smoke.
Employees in offices across Moscow were being sent home as the oppressive, thick smoke filtered into buildings
“My head aches, I feel nausea and I'm scared for my 83-year-old mother, who feels really bad," said 50-year-old businesswoman Marina Orlova.
Many Muscovites sent their families out of the city to stay at summer residences in the countryside. Although the smoke affected many of these, residents said air quality was still better because of the lack of vehicle pollution.
Reuters