GAS SUPPLIES:RUSSIA'S BIGGEST gas firm has warned European Union states it cannot boost supply to meet their demands, as a deadly cold front sweeps across the Continent from Siberia.
Almost 300 people have now died in the freezing temperatures in central and eastern Europe, most of them homeless, elderly or ill people who were not strong enough to withstand the cold or were unable to get help when blizzards cut off villages or roads became impassable.
Ukraine has suffered the most fatalities, with at least 131 people dying as temperatures plunged to minus 33, despite the authorities erecting about 3,000 tents around the country to provide food and temporary accommodation for the homeless. Officials said 2,300 Ukrainians had also sought medical treatment for hypothermia and other cold-related problems.
In Bosnia, more than 100 remote mountain villages have been cut off by heavy snowfall, and a state of emergency has been declared in the capital, Sarajevo. All schools there have been closed and the city’s tram network has seized up.
Bosnia’s emergency services are using helicopters to deliver food and other supplies to people in isolated areas and to evacuate those in need of urgent help.
In neighbouring Serbia, more than 70,000 people have been cut off for several days. In the capital Belgrade, soldiers were deployed to clear the main boulevard and unemployed people were offered the equivalent of about €10 to shovel snow from the streets.
The deep freeze has prompted many EU states to seek more gas from Russian firm Gazprom, a major supplier, but the extremely cold weather and high demand for fuel in Russia itself means the company cannot meet the request.
“Gazprom at the moment cannot satisfy the additional volumes that our western European partners are requesting,” the company’s deputy chairman Alexander Kruglov told Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin.
Mr Putin told him that, while the needs of foreign customers must be respected, meeting domestic demand “is the priority task”.
Gazprom said it was delivering the volumes as in its contracts with EU states, but it was not meeting requests for additional amounts. Due to the mild early winter, however, EU gas reserves are relatively high, so shortages are unlikely.
Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have all registered falls in gas supplies from Russia.
