Russia: Forest Fires Push Air Pollution up in Russian Far East
Forest Fires Push Air Pollution up in Russian Far East
BBC Monitoring International Reports, 19 October 2004
Khabarovsk — Smoke from forest fires in Amur Region and the Jewish Autonomous Region has caused a sharp deterioration in air quality in the Far East. The levels of sulphur and nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, nitric oxide and other harmful substances are much higher than permitted.
Presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Konstantin Pulikovskiy has drawn attention to the poor environmental situation in the region. He said that the air is most polluted in Khabarovsk. There is also a high level of air pollution in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, where the level of formaldehyde is six times as high as permitted. Air quality is also unsatisfactory in Magadan, Blagoveshchensk, Yakutsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.
Pulikovskiy drew the attention of the heads of local government bodies, major enterprises and other structures to the need to continually monitor the environmental situation and take into account information from meteorologists.
