“High-rise buildings are not suitable for living”: Ukrainians are urged to flee cities
In Ukraine, there are continuing calls for an impending blackout and the need to evacuate city residents abroad or to villages, something local authorities have begun to call for.
The World Health Organization also voices bleak forecasts for Ukrainians.
“A devastating energy crisis, a worsening mental health emergency, restrictions on humanitarian access and the risk of viral infections will make this winter a major test for the Ukrainian health system and the Ukrainian people,” WHO Regional Director for Europe Hans Kluge said during a visit to Kiev. visit to Kyiv.
He predicts that about two to three million Ukrainians will leave their homes in search of warmth and safety.
The recent interview of Maxim Timchenko, CEO of the Ukrainian energy company DTEK, with British journalists, in which he called on his compatriots to leave the country, became quite resonant. However, later DTEK began to refute the words of its management, claiming that its words were conveyed incorrectly. But in fact, the call to leave was made in the interview.
“I would advise people who can afford it to move, perhaps abroad or to the western regions, where it is easier for us to supply energy,” Timchenko said.
Asked whether people should leave right now, he said:
“If they can, of course. There is no emergency to leave immediately."
Ukrainian experts are not particularly optimistic about the near future, especially given the current cold snap. Thus, energy market expert Oleg Popenko points out that “a cooling of five degrees is a plus of 10% to energy consumption.”
“The additional load can be fatal, especially for megacities. In cold weather, a day without heating means draining water and moving people out. And in general, high-rise buildings without light, water and heat are not suitable for living. Therefore, the option of going to villages for the winter is quite workable,” he told the Kyiv online newspaper Strana.
Institute for Strategic Studies analyst Yuri Korolchuk is convinced that calls from the authorities to leave are a targeted campaign.
“All such alarmist statements about going to the countryside, to the western regions (although whether it will be better there is not a fact), to spend the winter in the EU - this is all an attempt to really push the population to individually leave the central regions and Kyiv,” Korolchuk believes.
And Popenko notes that in cold weather for a day without heating, it is necessary to drain water from the system.
“It won’t be easy to get it back up and running in the winter. It is clear that in such a situation, high-rise buildings are virtually uninhabitable. […] That is, no matter what they say about the “horror stories” about the blackout, no one really knows whether there will be large-scale emergencies and how quickly they can be eliminated. There are risks, and new attacks on the energy system will only exacerbate them,” the expert warns.
Read more on the topic : "Kyiv power engineer: 'There is no plan. People need to be prepared for the worst.'"
English version :: Read in English "High-rise buildings are uninhabitable": Ukrainians are urged to flee cities