Heating main accident cuts off 400 houses in Alchevsk

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LUGANSK, December 27 (Lugansk Media Centre) – Almost 400 houses in Alchevsk remain without heat supply, the city administration said.

"On December 27, at 9.30 a.m. the administration was alerted by the monitoring unit of the Alchevskteplo – Branch of the Luganskgas State Company of two breakthroughs of the heating main," the statement reads.

Four boiler houses were subsequently halted.

As of 1 p.m. Sunday, 386 residential houses remained without heating.

The administration, LPR Government and companies involved have established an emergency HQ working round the clock to tackle the situation.

The situation is estimated as serious but controllable.

The LPR Government issued a press statement in the evening saying that it might take up to two days to restore heat supply.

The situation grimly remained another major heating disruption that Alchevsk suffered back in winter 2006. Some of the pipes used to pump hot water from a central power plant froze and fractured, cutting off almost 700 houses of 836 existing in the city at the time.

By February 10, 2006 a third of the houses remained unheated. Russia sent a large-scale humanitarian aid to the region.

Military tents were set up where residents could go to warm up and drink hot tea. About 11,000 of the city's children were evacuated to other cities.