Traffic of the trains at several lines of the Moscow Underground has been cut off. The announcement at Tulskaya station
Photo: Sergey Mikheev
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Rush Day
// Moscow Learns How to Do Without Electricity
Yesterday’s electricity cut-off affected almost all agencies, services and enterprises of the city. 20,000 passengers of the Moscow Underground suffered the hardest. Several millions people of were left without telephone connection, the Internet, water supply and any hope to reach the places of their destination.
Authorities and Military Work on Diesel
First it was screens and then light that faded at the press centre of the Federal Council yesterday. Under the instructions from the personnel department of the Federation Council the building’s power supply was switched on to a reserve energy source. The staff of the chamber explained to Kommersant that the buildings of governing bodies usually had an additional Diesel engine. Yesterday’s power cut affected the Defense Ministry too. For instance, the Military Academy of the General Staff and the Higher Troop College located in Moscow was also de-energized. The Staff of the Space Forces was also left without electricity but power supply of its central command post and the signal office centre were shifted to reserve ones, stationary Diesel engines. The staff of the Distant Air Forces and the staff of the rear services of the Armed Forces had to resort to the same measures. The General Staff of the Missile Troops of the Strategic Purposes, the Space Forces’ the Chief Centre of Tests and Management and the Western command post of the Missile Assault Warning System situated in Moscow Region were also transferred to the emergency power supply.
The crisis touched the General Staff itself too. They had to keep on reserve energy sources for more than two hours. Gen. Yuri Baluevsky, the head of the General Staff, says that the power outrage did not damage the military services. However, Kommersant learnt that the cuts cost the Defense Ministry over 150 million rubles, the money spent on the fuel for Diesel engines.
Dead Cash Machines
A great number of banks had to hold up the work of a number of their offices and affiliates. Sberbank had to issue an official statement informing its clients that “temporal difficulties in servicing the clients of the bank are possible”. The bank’s press service reported “the suspension of operations on the deposit accounts and of cash machines, which concerns servicing both natural persons and legal entities”.
Vneshtorgbank also officially announced that some of its additional offices “in Moscow and Moscow Region have suspended certain bank operations”.
A survey conducted at the banks showed that the major problems involved cash machines. “A part of the bank machines situated in southern districts of Moscow is not operating because of they power cut,” Alexey Marey, chief of the retail and client service department at Alfa Bank. Maxim Kondratenko, head of the retail department of Moscow International Bank (MMB), says that “temporal failures were recorded” at their 30 cash machines. “20 out of 36 cash machines were not operating at the height of cut-offs,” Petrokommerz bank reported to Kommersant yesterday.
Stock Market Strain Declines
Yesterday’s outrages took its toll on the work of the Russian stock market. Bids were closed practically at all Russian markets for some time. Over 80 percent of the market participants had experienced some difficulties while working connected with the failures of Internet providers.
RTS ceased bidding at all its sections starting from 12:37 am. “All our gateways were operating,” the press service of RTS claimed. “We did not have to engage a reserve sector, but due to the problems with Internet providers experienced by market participants and the fact that bidding was impossible we had to suspend our operations until special orders are made.” Bidding was resumed at the classic, the exchange and the term markets of FORTS of the RTS at 2:45 pm. The resumption of bidding for the stocks of Gazprom (St. Petersburg Stock Exchange initiates the trade) was announced at 3:45 pm.
Biddings were suspended at MMVB Exchange twice: from 12:30 am to 1:30 pm and from 1:30 am up to 2:30 pm. “Some 80 percent of market participants did not manage to bid that’s why we had to hold up the bidding. All regional exchanges had been switched off,” the press service of MMVB said. “But the connection had been resumed in Moscow by 2:30 pm, and over 40 percent of regional brokers joined bidding.” The director of the PR department of MMVB Alexey Gerasyuk says that the bidding was resumed by 2:30 pm at the term market, the exchange market and the market of state bonds. According to him, the bidding with today execution was extended up to 4:30 pm for the participants of currency section [it usually closes at 1:30].
The money-market did not encounter serious problems. “There were no panic sell-offs. Rate fluctuation reflected the dollar fluctuation on the international market,” Sergey Romanchyk, head of the conversion operations department of Metallinvestbank says. However, the problems with power supply provoked a substantial rise in basic rates at the first minutes. Short terms credits cost at the inter-bank markets some 4 percent annual before the cut-offs, reached 14 percent after and returned to 7 percent by the evening.
Traders noted in private conversations that the heat wave that had set in in Moscow and the power outrage had sufficiently boosted the earnings of the near by beer bars.
6 Million Of Cell Phone Subscribes Unavailable
The most part of the ru-net was practically paralyzed during the “electric lock-out”. The access speed to the Russian internet sources dropped almost to the zero by 3 pm. Dmity Sobolev, marketing and PR director of Karavan company, told Kommersant that between 12,000 and 15,000 sites of its clients were inaccessible for users from 12:15 am up to 4 pm.
Mobile Telesystems (MTS) and VimpelCom admitted system failures yesterday. Pavel Nefedov, PR director of MTS, announced approximately a third of the company’s base stations were de-energized. They were shortly switched to reserve energy sources.
550 VimpelCom’s base stations in Moscow and Moscow Regions were transferred to accumulators. Besides, as VimpelCom’s spokesperson Yulia Ostroukhova says, some 100 stations in de-energized Moscow districts were cut off. “We have witnessed 2 and 2,5 times overloads because of the sharp increase in the use of the cell connection,” an announcement VimpelCom circulated yesterday says.
The situation with VimpelCom even aggravated during the day. 300 of 3,000 base stations were cut off in Moscow and Moscow Region as of 5:30 pm.
Cell operations cannot specify so far how many subscribers encountered problems with connection yesterday or lost it. Experts have estimated it may be 30 percent of all the subscribers of the Moscow region, i.e. some 6 million people.
Traders Close
Trading networks suffered losses yesterday as well, Mega shopping centre at Moscow’s south-west – the biggest. The centre was kept open but the doors of the main tenants shut close. Achan, OBI, Stockmann and some 250 more shops and restaurants did not work. It was only IKEA furniture that was selling at the shopping mall as usual. The company’s press service reported that their own electric power station was plugged in shortly after the cut-off able to generate energy for several days. The market participants estimate that the earnings deficiency of IKEA Mos (the owner of Mega centre) amounted to $3 or $4 million yesterdsay.
Troubles of retail chains turned out to be less large-scale though most large retailers, such as Perekrestok, Sedmoy Kontinent, Ramstor, Kopeyka, had to close some of their shops. 30 shops of 74 Perekrestok’s chain were idle. Kopeyka suspended its work because of the switch-off of check-out machines and refrigerators.
Conveyer Switches Off
All enterprises situated in Moscow’s south-eastern industrial airs froze. One of Russia’s largest car factory ZIL and the conveyer of Avtoframos, Renault’s subsidiary, went idle too. The operations of Moscow’s refinery were stopped and are in the recirculation regime now, which means the minimal power consumption that makes it possible not to cease the production altogether. Moscow ball-bearing factory held up operating too.
Moscow diesel-locomotive-building works (controlled by Severstaltrans) faced serious problems as well. Representatives of Sevestaltrans say that the plant ceased operating at half past twelve, and its foundry suffered the greatest: the equipment became clogged with frozen metal.
The proprietors of Moscow’s gasoline stations, including major oil companies, incurred great losses yesterday. Almost none of the stations has its own independent power supply systems, that’s why gasoline station of the city’s Southern, South-Eastern and South-Western districts were not servicing. The Moscow Fuel Association mentions 243 gasoline stations in these districts. Their non-received earnings for the previous day may total 40 million rubles.
Darkness at the End of the Tunnel
The Moscow Underground went through the biggest failure in its history yesterday. Power cut-offs made trains stand still at heaviest lines: Zamoskvoretskaya, Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya, Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya, Serpukhovko-Timiryazevskaya, Butovskaya, Lyublinskaya, Kalininskaya and Kakhovskaya lines. “The situation was close to critical,” the management of the Underground tells Kommersant. “43 trains got stuck in tunnels at different lines with 20,000 people on. The most important thing is that thanks to the efficient work of theUnderground’s employees and the passengers we managed to avoid panic. In most cases, people were up to the mark acting according to all the instructions of the Underground’s workers and help one another and prevented themselves panicy behavious of others.”
The evacuation of the passengers started 20 minutes after the cut-off. During this time the workers of the Underground managed to put the so-called “bonding jumpers” that are to secure people against current rushes in case of an unexpected tension supply. Afterwards, the trains that were situated on the slopes were rolled down to the stations but most of the Underground’s “prisoners” had to evacuate on foot.
Because of the halt of the Underground emergency measures had to be taken to provide transportation. 1,200 buses were summoned to for these purposes.
It was not that simple with the overland transportation, though. “There are 1,581 traffic lights in the city, 236 are out of order now,” Vyacheslav Trubin, second chief of the propaganda department of the city’s traffic police, told Kommersant. Sergey Kazantsev, head of the department, ordered to take out all personnel out to the streets, including those at the staff. He coordinated the work of traffic warden inspectors at the centre of Start teleautomatic traffic surveillance all day long. Traffic jams naturally cropped up but a collapse was prevented. The personnel of Moscow Region’s traffic police helped their city’s counterparts cutting the entry of heavy haulers into the city. Tracks were stopped at the suburban ring roads.
Air passengers also experienced problems, mostly those flying from Domodedovo airport. The terminal at the Pavelesky Station that accounts for one fourth of traffic flow for this airport (some 8,000 people a day) was closed at 11:20 am. Suburban trains heading from the Paveletskaya Station to the airport were halted too. The employees of the terminal say that “more than 500 people failed to be there for their flight on time” but it was only “during the first hours of the energy crisis [though the terminal still does not work.]”. Local taxi drivers sent fares up, so you could reach Domodedovo for no less that 4,000 or 5,000 rubles [about $170] yesterday. The number of those late for their flights is unknown but the employers of the Paveletsky Station claim “it was sure to be 2,000 people”.
Failures were observed in the work of railways as well. Khasyan Zyabirov, first vice-president of Russian Railways, told Kommersant that “tension disappeared at 55 traction substations and 120 posts of electric centralization. 37 passenger trains, 700 local trains and 125 freight trains were on the rails at different sections of the Moscow Railroad at the moment of the cut-off. 24 passenger trains, 29 local trains and 125 freight trains were motionless as of 1:40 pm.”
Six of ten depots were left without power supply. “We immediately took the rest of the trains to the stations by diesel locomotives,” Khasyan Zybirov explains. “The whole of the Moscow Railroad’s fleet was engaged – some 500 diesel locomotives, while no more than 150 trains are usually operated in usual shunting operations. However, we concentrated only on passenger means of transportation. We’ve had to leave freight ones so far though some of them carry perishable and dangerous goods. Significant delays of local and long-distance trains have occurred, though we haven’t cancelled a train.” Economic losses inflicted on the Russian Railways by the power cut-off have not even been estimated. “We have more important things to do at the moment,” Khasyan Zybirov gave a sigh.
Lethal Outcomes Prevented
Emergency situations arouse in many Moscow’s hospitals. Lyudmila Kostomarova, director of Moscow’s Scientific and Practical Centre of Emergency Medical Aid, reported to Kommersant that power supply had been cut off in 29 city’s hospitals. She added that 8 cases of electricity cut-offs were recorded at reanimation units that housed patients in grave conditions. “We managed to end up without casualties, no cases of lethal outcomes owing to the power supply abortion have been recorded today,” Mss Kostomarova said. “All reanimation units were switched to independent sub-stations, their work was maintained by rescuers from the Emergency Ministry’s Moscow Department.
An hour power cut-off nearly led to the defrosting of corps at the 1st Forensic Mortuary (the South-Western district of Moscow). A man on duty there told Kommersant that “the mortuary does not have an independent sub-station, but the situation did not go out of hand as the mortuary is situated below the ground and there was not enough time for the air temperature to change drastically.”
The work of the Western Waterworks that services a fourth of the city’s population was suspended over the power supply failures. Three regulative centers (intermediate pumping stations that sustain the required pressure of water in the area) were left without electricity. They are all situated in Moscow’s south: Konkovsky, Orekhovo-Borisovsky and Kuzminsky.
“We had to engage all 19 reserve cisterns of drinking water that were delivered to the break-stricken districts in order to provide the residents with water,” Evgeniya Bogomolova, spokesperson for Mosvodokanal told Kommersant. Besides, there was no energy supply for several hours at Lyuberetskaya, Kuryanovskay and Yuzhno-Butovskaya aeration plants that service the whole of the city. The work of 43 out of 136 city’s drainage pumping stations was held up. It created an excess in the pressure of the drainage system, and a stream of sewages rushed in Volgogradsky Prospect flooding a 200-metre section of the road.
Ivan Tyazhlov
All the Article in Russian as of May 26, 2005
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