Units of the Russian army have been called in to help clear record-breaking snowfall that paralyzed Moscow and nearby regions over the weekend.
One person was killed and at least five injured in what has been dubbed as the Moscow's "storm of the century."
Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Sunday that 100 engineer brigade troops, two military graders and a tractor had been deployed to clear snow in the city of Krasnogorsk just outside Moscow.
“[The weekend’s precipitation] is almost double the indicators that have been recorded in previous years — it’s the strongest snowfall in the past 100 years,” Fobos meteorological center expert Yevgeny Tishkovets was cited as saying by RBC on Sunday.
In addition to the troops deployed in the Moscow region, special units in Russia’s Western Military District were put on alert in the neighboring Smolensk, Bryansk, Vladimir and Tula regions, the Defense Ministry announced.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin declared school attendance non-mandatory on Monday and urged commuters to use public transportation instead of cars, while more than 100 flights from Moscow were delayed due to the snowstorm, the Interfax news agency reported Monday.
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