Are there really 700 people a day dying in Moscow?

[bushmeister0]

Time:

"Throughout the heat wave, now in its seventh week, head-in-the-sand responses seem to have been the norm. On Monday, for instance, the federal health ministry rebuked local health officials in Moscow for announcing that the death rate in the capital had doubled to 700 people a day. The figure, however, was backed up by reports that the city's morgues were stuffed beyond capacity."

Is this a misprint? WTF?

Not to worry, Putin & Co, have it under control . . . (Putin's "Brownie moment.")

"The most blatant attempts to downplay the disaster have come from the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov. As the fires around his city choked the skies with smoke last week, Luzhkov was away on holiday. 'What's the problem? What, do we have some kind of emergency situation, some kind of crisis situation? What's the problem in Moscow?' the mayor's spokesman told the LifeNews agency on August 6. Three days later, LifeNews reported that Luzhkov, an avid beekeeper, had ordered his prize-winning hives to be evacuated away from the smog. All the while, he has refused to declare a state of emergency for Moscow's human inhabitants. 'The situation is not simple, but it is controllable,' Luzhkov told Putin on Tuesday after he finally returned home, looking tanned but very grumpy. In response, Putin praised the mayor for cutting short his holiday and coming back 'in good time.'"

This coming from the guy who was jet skying while 118 Russian sailors died on the Kursk.

[Newsjock]

1. NYC by comparison

About 152 per day in 2006:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/pr2008/pr002-08.shtml

The death rate in New York City reached an all-time low in 2006, the Health Department reported today, as the number of deaths fell to 55,391 – down from 57,068 in 2005 and 60,218 in 2001.

[jsamuel]

2. elderly and sick die quicker when they can't breath properly

[dipsydoodle]

3. Its not an issue over which they have much control

other than evacuating the city.

The jet stream, which is remaining static , is taking all the hot air up there that should be in the Med countries :

According to meteorologists monitoring the atmosphere above the northern hemisphere, unusual holding patterns in the jet stream are to blame. As a result, weather systems sat still. Temperatures rocketed and rainfall reached extremes.

Renowned for its influence on European and Asian weather, the jet stream flows between 7 and 12 kilometres above ground. In its basic form it is a current of fast-moving air that bobs north and south as it rushes around the globe from west to east. Its wave-like shape is caused by Rossby waves – powerful spinning wind currents that push the jet stream alternately north and south like a giant game of pinball.

In recent weeks, meteorologists have noticed a change in the jet stream's normal pattern. Its waves normally shift east, dragging weather systems along with it. But in mid-July they ground to a halt, says Mike Blackburn of the University of Reading, UK (see diagram). There was a similar pattern over the US in late June.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727730.101-frozen-jet-stream-links-pakistan-floods-russian-fires.html

[Raschel]

4. I do like how they canned some forestry official who was away on holiday.

[Turborama]

5. The population of Moscow (as of 1 January 2010) is 10,562,099

Moscow is the most populous city on the continent of Europe and the seventh largest city proper in the world, a megacity.

Due to a low birth rate and high mortality rate, the population of Russia has been declining by approximately 700,000 people per year since the fall of the Soviet Union. In 2003, the number of deaths exceeded the number of births by approximately 49,400. Whilst the birth rate has risen in more recent years, the average age of Moscow's population continues to increase.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow

According to that article 350 people die a day there. An extra 350 a day is quite staggering, though.