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Number of emergency situations up in Moscow region in 2011

Compared with 2010, the number of emergency situations increased by a third and the number of lives lost in them jumped 41%

MOSCOW, January 2 (Itar-Tass) — Overall number of emergency situations evidenced an increase in the Moscow region last year but the number of fires went down along with this, Yevgeny Sekirin, the chief of the regional branch of the federal Ministry for Emergency Situations and Civil Defense /EMERCOM/ told Itar-Tass.

"Last year, there were ten emergency situations in the Moscow region," he said. "They claimed the lives of 70 people and left 171 people injured."

"Compared with 2010, the number of emergency situations increased by a third and the number of lives lost in them jumped 41%."

"The act of suicide bombing at the Domodedovo airport became the largest emergency situation and if you take technogene emergencies, there was a blast of household gas in an apartment block in Bronnitsy, the crashes of light-engine planes in the Serpukhov and Yegorysvsk districts and, naturally, the inordinate atmospheric precipitation at the beginning of the year."

"Also, there were many road accidents that claimed the lives of five and more people in each particular case," he said.

On the face of it, the decrease in the number of fires looked inspiring.

"All in all, more than 8,800 fires occurred in the Moscow region last year," Sekirin said. "This figure is 10% less than in 2010."

"The death toll from these fires was 535, and another 460 persons received traumas," he went on. "Compared with 2010, the number of deaths was down 14% and the number of injured survivors, down 16%, and that's a really good result."

Fires in the Moscow region are mostly caused by faulty handling of electrical equipment, inappropriate operations of furnaces and stoves, and carelessness towards open fire, Sekirin said.

"For instance, incautious handling of electrical equipment caused more than 3,000 fires, or practically one fire in three," he said.