Russia: Chelyabinsk drowning in its own garbage

A state of emergency has been declared in Chelyabinsk. The city has been drowning in piles of household garbage since September 11. Putin's aide in the Urals Federal District, Nikolai Tsukanov, instructed Chelyabinsk region Governor Boris Dubrovsky to normalize the situation with the removal of garbage from the city within three days. Tsukanov demanded law enforcement agencies should investigate into the causes of the garbage crisis in the city and bring those guilty to criminal account. A regime of extra high hazard was announced in Chelyabinsk on September 23 after a number of garbage-clearing companies refused to take household waste to a new landfill. The new landfill was opened instead of the older one, which was put in operation in 1989, but was closed. The new landfill is located at a greater distance from the city, and representatives of garbage-clearing companies complained that they would run higher transportation costs.