KIEV, October 30. /TASS/. About 200 people blocked traffic along a Kiev street protesting against heat and hot water supply shortages in their houses, the UNIAN news agency reported on Thursday.
Residents of Kiev’s southwestern district Solomensky say that although the heating season has already started, there was no heating and hot water in their houses. Moreover, they say they have been having electricity supplies problems since October 19, too.
An activist said that people had asked the authorities to solve this problem more than once but the problem was still there.
According to media reports, protesters only let ambulance cars pass along the street, with public transport and private vehicles stuck in a congestion.
Police are taking no measures to disperse the protesters.
Last week, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko decreed to begin the heating season in “all houses without exceptions” across the entire country before October 26. The president said that heating was the competence of local authorities.
Last Sunday, Kiev’s deputy mayor Pyotr Panteleyev said that heat supplies had begun to the majority of residential houses in Kiev. He said that 80% of houses had been hooked up to central heating systems. It was planned to begin heat supplies to the remaining houses on Monday, October 27.
Air temperatures in Kiev are now plus 1.5 degrees Celsius. The temperature is to drop to three degrees below zero in the night to raise to plus ten during Thursday.