President Vladimir Putin expressed concern on Saturday about natural disasters of "
unprecedented
" magnitude
in Russia, faced with devastating forest fires in Siberia and flooding in the south.
"
The scale and nature of natural disasters in some areas are absolutely unprecedented,
" Putin said at a televised meeting, calling on the government to "
act swiftly and effectively
" in the face of environmental problems.
The Russian president cited as an example the heavy rains in the south of the country, where "
the level of monthly precipitation now falls in a few hours
" or the forest fires in Siberia and the Far East, aggravated by drought and spread by strong winds.
"
All of this shows once again how important it is to engage in a deep and systematic way in the future in the climate and environmental agenda
," added Mr Putin.
Read also: Climate: in Europe, more rain in the north and more droughts in the South
Forest fires in Siberia have already devastated more than 16.6 million hectares, especially in Yakutia, a vast but sparsely populated territory, where smoke has blanketed cities, forcing the authorities to declare a public holiday on Friday.
The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, whose leader arrived in Yakutia on Thursday, announced that it had set up a special operation center to deal with these fires, against which some 5,000 people are fighting.
Smoke from the fires in Yakutia caused higher than normal levels of hydrogen sulphide as far as Chelyabinsk, 3,800 km to the southwest.
The US space agency, NASA, reported a week ago that this smoke had also reached the North Pole.
In southern Russia and Crimea, torrential rains caused flooding and the evacuation of hundreds of people, while nearly 100,000 people were left without power on Saturday.
Read also: The climate will weigh more and more on health
At the beginning of August, the UN climate experts (IPCC) sounded the alarm bells in the face of accelerating climate change, stressing that humanity had no choice but to drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gases if it wanted to limit the damage.