Forecast For Moscow - 102+ F - Smog Levels From Peat & Forest Fires At 10X Safe Standards - LA Times

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As peat fires raged on the outskirts of town, shrouding Moscow in a thick cloud of smog, residents Wednesday sought to cope with a record-breaking heat wave that is expected to intensify further.

Public health officials urged workers in non-essential jobs to stay home and people not to drive their cars as weather forecasters predicted temperatures exceeding 102 degrees Thursday, in a city more used to icy spells than such heat. With more than 1,480 fires in two weeks, the smog level had soared to as high as 10 times the safe level in parts of Moscow.


The nation's chief sanitary inspector, Dr. Gennady Onishchenko, has advised city dwellers to wet their window screens to block harmful substances in the air from entering their homes. Muscovites have taken to unorthodox methods to deal with the heat in a city with little air conditioning.

"I sit at work sweating like a pig and meekly watching the clock," said mathematician Andrey Razumovsky, who is employed at an academic institute. "But when I come home I can't sleep either because of the high temperature inside. "Last night I went to sleep at 4 in the morning only after I covered myself with a wet bed sheet, which was dry by the time I woke up at 7 a.m.," he said.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-moscow-smog-fires-20100729,0,855546.story