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Moscow Loses Power, Putin Loses Temper
By John Stith
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2005-05-25
Power outages strained Moscow today and Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the state run Unified Electricity Systems (RAO UES) citing them as the reason why.
Commuters were stuck in subways sweating it out in Moscow, some water supplies were interrupted, and hospitals had to shift to emergency power to get through the problem.
The ITAR TASS news agency quote the head of RAO UES as saying:
The RAO UES CEO Anatoly Chubais described the crisis as worst ever.
"Today's situation is an unprecedented, extremely grave cascade-type failure," Chubais said.
"It is clear already now that the accident began with a fire at the Chagino substation - a facility of key importance to south-bound supply lines," he said.
In his opinion losses in Moscow have been "grave or considerable."
"Losses in the city have totaled up to 2,000 megawatts (10-15 percent of the average consumption), in the Tula region, up to 700-800 megawatts, and far less significant in the Kaluga region, where some disruptions occurred.
The news agency also reported the Prosecutor General of has already started criminal proceedings against management in the state run energy company.
President Putin irritably expressed his opinion that this problem rested squarely on the shoulders of company management. "I think it happened due to insufficient attention on their part to everyday activity of the corporation," Putin said.
It was interesting to note that the ITAR TASS made no mention of Chubais previous political involvement and his criticims.
About the Author:
John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.
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