Laboratories in the Siberian city of Omsk have discovered that the atmosphere is teeming with the poisonous, corrosive gas hydrogen sulfide. The air in the north-west of the city is more than 15 times over safe limits, RT informs.
The revelations are the latest in a long string of pollution complaints in Omsk, over 2,000km east of Moscow. Earlier this month, local prosecutors announced that they were investigating a local asphalt plant for “violation of the rules for the emission of pollutants.” On Monday, local Omsk water management company OmskVodokanal was found to have 45 times the permitted amount of phenol in their air.
After the latest revelations, the local environmental prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation “to check compliance with the legislation on the protection of the atmosphere.” Air sampling discovered that maximum allowed emissions were being exceeded by up to 14.88 times.
This summer has been particularly testing for the Siberian environment, with about 20,000 tons of fuel being spilled from a power plant in Norilsk, inside the Arctic Circle. According to Rosprirodnadzor, the country’s environmental watchdog, the damages to the local environment will take 148 billion rubles ($2 billion) to fix.
In 2019, Russia’s state weather service Roshydromet released a report stating that 56 million Russians in 143 cities are breathing polluted air, above the maximum allowable levels.
