Smoke from Russian wildfires reaches Kazakhstan

Moscow 'hiding heatstroke cases' after death rate jumps

Reuters, BBC Online, Almaty

Smoke from Russia's deadly wildfires has spread into northern regions of Kazakhstan but poses no immediate danger to residents, the Kazakh Emergencies Ministry said yesterday.

Black smoke had reached the city of Kostanai, about 100 km (63 miles) from the border with Russia's Chelyabinsk region, said a ministry spokesman, Eldor Raimbekov.

"The smoke has entered some border areas," Raimbekov said. "There is no threat to the population. The smoke could clear again today, depending on the prevailing winds."

Russia's deadly summer heat wave, the worst on record, could wipe $14 billion off its economic growth this year, economists said this week. Weather forecasters say the heat has lasted for an uninterrupted 50 days in Moscow and central Russia.

Doctors in Moscow are being told not to diagnose heatstroke as a cause of death after a jump in the mortality rate during the heat wave, Russia media say.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one doctor said the unofficial instruction being passed down was to use diagnoses that "sound less frightening".

A photo shows a note pinned up in a casualty area, which reads "Attention! Do not diagnose heatstroke".

While wildfires continue to burn, temperatures are starting to drop.

The emergencies ministry reported that as of Thursday morning 66 major fires continued to burn across Russia, 40 of them in peat bogs, which are notoriously difficult to extinguish.

While wildfires continued to burn up to 100km (60 miles) away from the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, experts said there was little danger of serious radioactive contamination.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the fires had destroyed a quarter of the agricultural land where cereals are grown.

Speaking in southern Russia at a meeting on stabilising the grain market, he said rises in the price of foodstuffs must be avoided. Russia has already suspended exports of wheat.

The number of people said to have been killed by the fires directly stands at 54 after two security personnel died fighting flames near the Sarov nuclear research centre in Nizhny Novgorod.

But little has been revealed officially about the number of people who succumbed to temperatures approaching 40C (104F) and choking smog from the fires.

National mortality figures for the summer have not been reported and when the city of Moscow revealed on Monday that its daily death rate had more than doubled, the federal government swiftly challenged the figures.