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Fires in Russia: For days now huge swathes of forest surrounding the capital Moscow have been burning out of control

04:31

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VideoassistentenAugust 5, 2010

Russians have never seen anything like it. For days now huge swathes of forest surrounding the capital Moscow have been burning out of control. It seems as soon as hundreds of blazes are dealt with, hundreds more appear.The country's fire brigades simply cannot cope. Instead the Government is relying on the military or thousand of voluntary workers to battle the fires. +++REIN+++ The fires are mainly concentrated in the region just east of Moscow. A huge area of land about twice the size of Luxembourg. President Dimitri Medvedev has proclaimed a state of emergeny in all seven regions there. +++RAUS++++ The Russian government is under increasing pressure to sort out the situation - a situation which many critics have blamed on mismanagement.Our correspondent travelled east of Moscow to the town of Elektrogorsk, right in the centre of the fire region, to file this report +++MAZ+++

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