A late-night underground water pipe explosion has injured several people and left hundreds of households without heating in eastern Moscow.
Five people were hospitalized with burns when a water main burst late on Wednesday. Over half a million residents in up to 2,000 buildings were left in freezing weather conditions without hot water or heating, RBC business portal reported.
By Thursday morning, some residents complained that the services were still down, despite claims by emergency authorities that they had fully restored supplies, the Kommersant business daily reported.
The water main exploded at two locations in eastern Moscow, the Emergency Situations Ministry said, as reported by Kommersant. Hundreds of kindergartens, schools and hospitals were affected, according to the report published Thursday.
Amateur footage of the explosion’s aftermath posted by independent radio station Ekho Moskvy showed steam rising from the ground and emergency crews working to contain the accident.
“Everything is in scalding water, people are being forced to sit on top of their cars,” the boy who filmed the video is heard as saying.
A woman at the scene shouts for him to leave the scene: “God forbid, everything is going to collapse!”
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