Residents of a Moscow region town impacted by power outages have taken to the streets, demanding that local authorities restore heat to their homes as subzero temperatures grip the region, Russian media reported Friday.
At least 21,000 people had power knocked out in their homes on Thursday morning in the town of Podolsk when a heating main burst at the Klimovsk Specialized Ammunition Plant, according to the Kommersant business daily.
The circumstances surrounding the incident at the plant in Podolsk, located some 50 kilometers south of Moscow, have not been disclosed.
The Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Moskva published a video of several local residents who gathered in the town’s central square to demand the authorities restore their heating, as well as punish those responsible for the outage.
“The police arrived quickly to disrupt us. I wish they’d brought back heating as fast as they dispatched the cops,” the person recording the video could be heard saying.
A Change.org petition with identical demands was launched online, which, by Friday evening, was signed by nearly 2,000 people.
“Since more than 24 hours have passed, we ask to punish all those involved in this emergency,” the petition reads, naming Podolsk Mayor Grigory Artamonov and the heads of local utilities as the culprits.
Households in the Moscow region towns of Khimki, Balashikha, Solnechnogorsk, Lyubertsy and Elektrostal also experienced heating loss as a result of power outages, with temperatures in the area plummeting to minus 20 degrees Celsius, according to the investigative news website iStories.
The Podyom news outlet, without citing its sources, reported that prosecutors have launched an investigation into the outages.