Published on September 9, 2010
About 50 homes have been destroyed by fire and an evacuation was underway in a village in Russia’s Altai Region, the regional emergencies ministry said Wednesday.
“Fifty houses have burned down in the village of Nikolayevka in the Altai Region. Village residents are being evacuated in 14 buses,” said Olesya Kukuyeva, spokesperson for the Siberian regional emergency situations center.
No injuries were reported.
The reasons behind the fires were currently unclear, but local media reported that some wildfires were also raging in forests not far from the village.
A task force from the emergencies ministry was enroute to the Siberian area to provide aid to combat the flames that reportedly cover an area of some 1,000 hectares.
This summer, wildfires claimed about 60 lives in the European part of Russia. Some 2,500 houses in 150 towns were burned to the ground, leaving 3,500 people homeless.