ALMATY (KAZAKHSTAN): The plight of a metropolis in Kazakhstan left with out heating for over every week in temperatures that dropped to minus 30 levels Celsius (minus 22 levels Fahrenheit) has sparked anger and highlighted the deplorable state of the nation’s Soviet-era infrastructure.
This month the northeastern metropolis of Ekibastuz, with a inhabitants of round 150,000 folks, descended into an icy hell, highlighting the dire penalties of energy disruptions in winter, as European nations wrestle with shortages resulting from Moscow’s assault on Ukraine.
Ekibastuz was residence to a Soviet-era jail camp the place author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned between 1950 and 1953.
The camp turned the inspiration for Solzhenitsyn’s traditional novel “One Day within the Lifetime of Ivan Denisovich.”
Photographs broadcast in Kazakhstan in latest days confirmed lengthy icicles forming inside flats, whereas residents burnt something they may discover to maintain heat.
Groups needed to work day and evening to restore water pipes that had burst because of the chilly.
On November 28, authorities declared a state of emergency in Ekibastuz after a malfunction at a thermal energy plant disadvantaged a number of districts of electrical energy and heating.
The state of emergency was lifted on Thursday and the scenario has progressively improved, however the issue has sparked outrage throughout the nation.
Dimash Kudaibergen, a well-liked Kazakh singer with almost 4 million followers on Instagram, mentioned these accountable ought to pay for the “tears of the moms left on the streets”.
“I imagine that each one the perpetrators, beginning with the pinnacle of the thermal energy plant, must be held accountable and serve their sentences in a jail with out heating,” he mentioned.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who noticed lethal protests get away over gasoline worth hikes in January final yr, fired the native governor and dispatched senior officers to the scene.
Town’s plight has sparked an outpouring of help, with residents of Kazakhstan amassing donations and sending heaters and blankets to Ekibastuz.
Funds have been even collected in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, which itself suffers from energy outages.
The Ekibastuz ordeal is simply the newest in an extended checklist of accidents involving thermal infrastructure within the huge Central Asian nation.
Kazakhstan’s vitality system, inherited from the Soviet Union, remains to be run-down regardless of investments.
“As they are saying right here, the primary time it is an accident, the second time it is a coincidence, however the third time it is a rule,” vitality professional Zhakyp Khairushev instructed AFP.
In response to authorities knowledge, heating crops have been on common constructed greater than 60 years in the past beneath Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev.
Khairushev mentioned that greater than 1,000 emergency shutdowns had occurred at thermal energy crops because the begin of the yr.
President Tokayev has lamented that the hydrocarbon-rich nation is “one of many world’s most energy-intensive nations” and is determined by imports from Russia.
To fulfill the excessive demand, energy stations must function at full capability, which will increase the chance of accidents.
Khairushev mentioned the latest growth of the power-hungry crypto mining business was including to the dangers.
Twenty-two of Kazakhstan’s 37 thermal energy stations are in non-public palms, and Tokayev has mentioned he’s contemplating the nationalisation of various property.
Many have laid the blame for the newest accident on tycoon Alexander Klebanov, the proprietor of the Ekibastuz energy station.
Klebanov, described by Forbes because the Central Asian nation’s fifteenth richest man, has denied accountability.
In a video assertion, he mentioned he had repeatedly warned the authorities concerning the situation of the plant.
“However as a non-public firm, we can not elevate shopper tariffs,” he mentioned. “So the corporate has been unprofitable from the very starting.”
Khairushev struck the same notice.
“The present infrastructure is deteriorating,” he mentioned.
“If pressing measures aren’t taken, together with the revision of tariffs, then, sadly, such accidents won’t be unusual.”
This month the northeastern metropolis of Ekibastuz, with a inhabitants of round 150,000 folks, descended into an icy hell, highlighting the dire penalties of energy disruptions in winter, as European nations wrestle with shortages resulting from Moscow’s assault on Ukraine.
Ekibastuz was residence to a Soviet-era jail camp the place author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned between 1950 and 1953.
The camp turned the inspiration for Solzhenitsyn’s traditional novel “One Day within the Lifetime of Ivan Denisovich.”
Photographs broadcast in Kazakhstan in latest days confirmed lengthy icicles forming inside flats, whereas residents burnt something they may discover to maintain heat.
Groups needed to work day and evening to restore water pipes that had burst because of the chilly.
On November 28, authorities declared a state of emergency in Ekibastuz after a malfunction at a thermal energy plant disadvantaged a number of districts of electrical energy and heating.
The state of emergency was lifted on Thursday and the scenario has progressively improved, however the issue has sparked outrage throughout the nation.
Dimash Kudaibergen, a well-liked Kazakh singer with almost 4 million followers on Instagram, mentioned these accountable ought to pay for the “tears of the moms left on the streets”.
“I imagine that each one the perpetrators, beginning with the pinnacle of the thermal energy plant, must be held accountable and serve their sentences in a jail with out heating,” he mentioned.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who noticed lethal protests get away over gasoline worth hikes in January final yr, fired the native governor and dispatched senior officers to the scene.
Town’s plight has sparked an outpouring of help, with residents of Kazakhstan amassing donations and sending heaters and blankets to Ekibastuz.
Funds have been even collected in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, which itself suffers from energy outages.
The Ekibastuz ordeal is simply the newest in an extended checklist of accidents involving thermal infrastructure within the huge Central Asian nation.
Kazakhstan’s vitality system, inherited from the Soviet Union, remains to be run-down regardless of investments.
“As they are saying right here, the primary time it is an accident, the second time it is a coincidence, however the third time it is a rule,” vitality professional Zhakyp Khairushev instructed AFP.
In response to authorities knowledge, heating crops have been on common constructed greater than 60 years in the past beneath Soviet chief Nikita Khrushchev.
Khairushev mentioned that greater than 1,000 emergency shutdowns had occurred at thermal energy crops because the begin of the yr.
President Tokayev has lamented that the hydrocarbon-rich nation is “one of many world’s most energy-intensive nations” and is determined by imports from Russia.
To fulfill the excessive demand, energy stations must function at full capability, which will increase the chance of accidents.
Khairushev mentioned the latest growth of the power-hungry crypto mining business was including to the dangers.
Twenty-two of Kazakhstan’s 37 thermal energy stations are in non-public palms, and Tokayev has mentioned he’s contemplating the nationalisation of various property.
Many have laid the blame for the newest accident on tycoon Alexander Klebanov, the proprietor of the Ekibastuz energy station.
Klebanov, described by Forbes because the Central Asian nation’s fifteenth richest man, has denied accountability.
In a video assertion, he mentioned he had repeatedly warned the authorities concerning the situation of the plant.
“However as a non-public firm, we can not elevate shopper tariffs,” he mentioned. “So the corporate has been unprofitable from the very starting.”
Khairushev struck the same notice.
“The present infrastructure is deteriorating,” he mentioned.
“If pressing measures aren’t taken, together with the revision of tariffs, then, sadly, such accidents won’t be unusual.”
