Weather alone should not be blamed for continuing power outages in Russia, Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said Tuesday in an apparent attempt to have responsibility shared with others.
"What Moscow and the Moscow Region have seen in the past two weeks has never happened before. Today we see how many such problems we have," he said at a conference in the Russian capital's power grid company MOESK.
Massive blackouts began in Moscow and around it on December 26 after an ice storm. It was raining for two days and drops of water froze immediately on power transmission lines, electrical wires and trees, breaking them and disrupting electricity supplies in entire districts, also affecting Moscow airports.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin harshly criticized Shmatko, Moscow Region Governor Boris Gromov and Nikolai Shvets, head of the holding company MRSK managing energy sector companies, on December 31 for their failure to deliver on an earlier promise to restore electricity supplies by the end of the day.
"Many things could have been prevented if there had been a stock of equipment and if we had specially trained staff," Shmatko said.
He also blamed "lack of coordination" for a blackout of Domodedovo Airport in late December. On December 31, the energy minister told Putin that private owners of territorial grid companies cannot deal with emergency situations.
Electricity supplies to most inhabited localities in the Moscow Region were restored on January 1, but heavy snowfalls and gales caused new blackouts around the Russian capital, as well as in other areas, including the Smolensk, Tver and Pskov regions.
As of Tuesday morning, some 40,000 residents of the Moscow Region were without electricity. About 400 repair brigades are working, and supplies are to be restored by 8 p.m. Moscow time (17 GMT).
On January 2, the authorities introduced "an emergency situation regime" in 18 districts of the Moscow Region due to the power outages.
MOSCOW, January 4 (RIA Novosti)
