Courtesy: EUMETSAT
By James Dacey
They are being described as the worst wildfires in modern Russian history and they show little sign of abating.
This image, captured by a EUMETSAT satellite, shows the thick grey smoke that has been sweeping towards Moscow from peat and forest wildfires in central and south Russia. They are a result of the country experiencing its hottest July since records began.
Today, the BBC has reported that Moscow’s daily death rate has now doubled as a result of the continuing heatwave and the wildfire smog. Meanwhile, there is also a state of emergency in the southern Urals as the fires approach Ozersk, a town that closed following Russia’s worst nuclear disaster in 1957.
This image was captured last Wednesday by the AVHRR instrument aboard the EUMETSAT’s Metop-A polar-orbiting satellite, launched in 1986. Moscow is marked by yellow writing towards the bottom left of the image.
