Emergency situations down in Russia in 2006

Russia's Minister for Emergency Situations Sergey Shoigu has summed up the results of the Ministry's work in 2006. Mr Shoigu called them  “generally positive.”

He spoke at a press conference in Moscow, and pointed out that there's been a marked improvement in performance in the last 12 months.

The number of emergency situations in 2006 is “almost 10 percent fewer than in 2005,” he said. However, there is something to worry about, as “their scale – if you can say so – is a little wider,” he pointed out.

Fewer people died through accidents, according to Minister Shoigu, “The number of victims has decreased by half.” Speaking of fatalities during emergency situations, “the number has decreased by 5%. In exact numbers, if in 2005 we had 5,684 fatalities, in 2006 there were 5,290 fatalities.”