Fires claim 20 lives and destroy villages
The fires have spread quickly across more than 200,000 acres in recent days after a record heat wave and severe drought that has plagued Russia for weeks. Fields and forests have dried up, and much of this year’s wheat harvest is ruined.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the smouldering ruins of Verkhnyaya Vereya, where all 341 houses were burned to the ground and two resident died in the blaze. The village was one of three destroyed around Nizhny Novgorod, Russia’s fifth-largest city located 475 kilometres east of Moscow.
