Overnight ice rain and north winds turned Vladivostok, Russia's Pacific capital, and most of the Primorye region into a frozen land with hundreds of power lines cut by wet snow. The storm left 120,000 people without electricity and many without heating and water.
Facilities for producing weapons grade plutonium believed safe despite fierce flames caused by wildfires.
Some 5.4 million hectares of land are ablaze across Russia, mostly in Siberia and the country's far east. Water sprayed by planes to fight the fires is ‘now as expensive as Champagne’.
Cries to urgently call state of emergency in Irkutsk region as it chokes in smoke.
Even school children are in firefighting brigades in some areas of Yakutia.
Omsk region reported ‘record high’ number of wildfires and cases of dry grass burning, that turn into wildfires this spring, with one day last week counting nearly a thousand new events a day. Omsk region emergency services said the number of wildfires is seven to ten times above the norm.
Wildfires on permafrost are ravaging Yakutia - or the Sakha Republic - the largest and coldest entity of the Russian Federation. The scale is mesmerizing. There are some 300 separate fires, now covering 12,140 square kilometers - but only around half of these are being tackled, because they pose a threat to people. The rest are burning unchecked.
Father missing under snow; more than 200 people continue search and rescue at -23C, snowstorm and bleak light of polar night.
Video shows hero climbers manually breaking ice off its cable stays at height of 324m (1,063ft) in Vladivostok.
A new study has warned of the risk to buildings in urban areas across Russia's permafrost zone caused by climate change. The Russian-US analysis says a worst-case scenario could lead to a 75-95% 'reduction in bearing capacity throughout the permafrost region by 2050'.
Arctic permafrost is degrading much faster than expected, warn scientists from the extreme north of Yakutia. It took two years for a building in the port town of Chersky on the Kolyma River, to snap in the middle after the once solid permafrost could no longer hold its supporting foundation.
The fires are now raging some 10 to 15 kilometers from the megaslump crater - a large hole in the frozen Arctic soil which highlights the dramatic speed of thawing permafrost.
Dry conditions fuel dozens of fires and result in a state of emergency across the Siberian Federal District.
One region alone - Yakutia - has 5 million tons scrap metal dumped in polar regions, an ugly Soviet legacy.
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