Russia’s Yakutsk region recorded -50 degrees this week as abnormally harsh winter continues to batter the Siberian city.
Residents of the city, which is located 5,000 km east of Moscow on the permafrost of the Russian Far East, have been facing a harrowing time as they brave through long winter which often plunges the temperatures to well below -40 degrees regularly. However, this week, the city broke all the records, as the temperature breached the -50 degrees mark.
“You can’t fight it. You either adjust and dress accordingly or you suffer,” Anastasia Gruzdeva, who is covered with two scarves, two pairs of gloves and multiple hats, told Reuters news agency.
You don’t really feel the cold in the city. Or maybe it’s just the brain prepares you for it, and tells you everything is normal,” she added.
Nurgusun Starostina, another resident, who has been selling frozen fish at a market without a fridge or freezer, said there were no special tricks to tackle with the cold.
“Just dress warmly,” she said. “In layers, like a cabbage!” she quipped.
With no signs of this long winter coming to an end, residents are fearing that it may impact the energy infrastructure in the city.
“Pipes are bursting, heating tanks are breaking down, everything is hard frozen. The local authorities were not prepared for this situation at all,” a resident told Metro newspaper.
Another local complained that their gas boiler had frozen solid, a daunting situation in a town where wintery conditions stretch from October to April.
“Batteries burst in the apartments of many residents, and sewer pipes froze,” they said.
Meanwhile, former deputy mayor of Yakutsk Vladimir Fedorov described the temperature as a “man-made disaster”.
(With inputs from agencies)
