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Government suggests uniform number 112 for emergency calls

An operator who will receive "112" calls is to decide whether one or several emergency services should be called

MOSCOW, August 1 (Itar-Tass) — The government has suggested using uniform telephone number "112" to summon all emergency services on all territories in Russia.

Earlier, the Ministry for Emergency Situations told Itar-Tass that introducing the uniform system "112" would ensure creation of a comprehensive security system in regions, ensure effective work of all the emergency services and their quicker response to accidents and emergencies, which in the long run would ensure security of citizens on a qualitatively new level.

At present, the "112" pilot zones have been created in three Russian regions, and technical preparations have been made in 22 territories of the Russian Federation. The experimental use of the "112" emergency call system has proved that the emergency services shorten the period of response to an emergency situation by 15 minutes on the average, and that public utilities services act more than 2.5 times quicker, the Ministry for Emergency Situations said. According to the ministry's estimates, after the "112" uniform emergency call system is introduced the response to traffic accidents, which now takes around nine minutes, will be shortened twice.

An operator who will receive "112" calls is to decide whether one or several emergency services should be called, and consequently, pass over the information to the respective services needed - fire-fighting service, police, ambulance, gas supply service, anti-terrorist centers or a communal dispatch service.

The expenditures on the uniform emergency call service will amount to approximately 20 billion roubles to be contributed from different budgets - the federal budget, regional budgets and budgets of telephone companies, said Minister for Emergency Situations Vladimir Puchkov on July 19 after a meeting of the government which approved the bill on the uniform emergency call service.

The number of basic languages ( Russian, English, French, German, Spanish) to be used at the "112" emergency call service might be enlarged, Puchkov said. Life itself might prompt a broader language choice to include Chinese for a number of regions in the Russian Far East, and languages spoken in a number of the CIS countries which might be needed in the south of Russia, Puchkov said.