Russian wildfires kill 34: ministry
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At least 34 people have been killed in forest and peat fires in the hottest summer in Russia, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Monday.
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A total of 7,000 natural fires have engulfed over 500,000 hectares of land across Russia recently, news agencies quoted Vladimir Stepanov, an official from the ministry as saying.
"No residential houses have been destroyed in the past three days as measures have been taken, and 265 settlements situated in the area of woodland fires have been saved," he said.
The blazes have left 2,210 people homeless and caused damages worth over 4.6 billion rubles (about 150 million U.S. dollars), the Ministry of Regional Development said on Sunday.
Temperatures across much of western and central Russia hit 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past five weeks, triggering forest fires and the worst drought in the country since 1972.
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