The road to the south led to the north – Newspaper Kommersant No. 56 (7501) dated 04/01/2023
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Until late Friday evening, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the authorities of the Rostov region continued to eliminate the consequences of a powerful snowfall that lasted about a day. As a result of a natural disaster, about a thousand cars got stuck on the M-4 Don highway, collecting a giant traffic jam 50 to 70 km long. Many drivers waited for hours for help without water, food or fuel. The snowfall also caused power outages in communities.
Since mid-March, spring weather has been established in the Rostov region with an air temperature of up to + 19 ° C, however, on March 29, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations for the region announced a storm warning for the region due to a cold snap and snowfall, which began on March 30. According to Alexander Ioshpa, Associate Professor of the Department of Oceanology at the Institute of Earth Sciences of the Southern Federal University, such prolonged snowfalls at this time of the year have not been seen in the Rostov region for almost 30 years: “The last time such a snowstorm lasted for three days at the end of March was in 1995.” “Due to the formation of the frontal section, very intense precipitation fell on the Rostov region,” explained Roman Vilfand, scientific director of the Hydrometeorological Center. “To sum up, about 50 mm of precipitation fell in the form of snow, sleet and rain during the day and night. This is a lot, the monthly norm of precipitation, this is an emergency.”
In connection with the snowfall on the afternoon of March 30, restrictions were imposed on trucks on the M-4 Don highway – the traffic police sent them to temporary parking lots. The Avtodor state company asked drivers to refuse to travel, but this did not help.
According to the Ministry of Transport of the Rostov region, the traffic jam was caused by trucks on summer tires that could not overcome the slopes and blocked traffic. For their transportation, heavy equipment had to be called in, which was removed from the construction of road facilities. Due to the ongoing blizzard, traffic accidents and a large number of paralyzed vehicles, by 20:00 the situation worsened so much that the road had to be blocked in the section 907-983 km (from Kamensk-Shakhtinsky to Krasny Sulin). Part of the harvesting equipment (Avtodor sent it to the track at 12:00) ended up in a common traffic jam with the rest of the machines, as a result, the track began to sweep up – drifts in places reached one meter. Late in the evening of March 30, by decision of the Governor of the Rostov Region Vasily Golubev was introduced emergency regime in Belokalitvensky, Kamensky, Krasnosulinsky and Oktyabrsky districts, as well as in the city of Shakhty.
Due to traffic jams and road closures, people in cars could not leave the highway. Sergey Filippov, head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Rostov Region, said on the air of the Rossiya 24 TV channel that about 1,000 cars were stuck on the road. One of the eyewitnesses told a Kommersant correspondent that he spent about 20 hours on the frozen road. “From 13:40, we are standing in the area of the interchange on the Likhovsky bridge towards Rostov. Not a single snowplow passed,” an eyewitness wrote at 00:40 on March 31. Judging by the comments under the posts of Vasily Golubev in Telegram, people tried to contact their relatives for hours. A special group was created to exchange information and search for victims.
Avtodor deployed heating points on the highway, sending teams of emergency commissioners with water and gasoline, as well as fuel trucks: 1.3 thousand liters of gasoline and 1.7 thousand liters of diesel fuel were handed over to motorists.
To free the roadway, the rescuers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations cut the barrier fence at eleven sections with grinders so that the cars could turn around. The snowfall has also created problems for public utilities and power engineers. Due to a snowstorm, electricity was cut off in eight districts and three cities with a population of almost 35 thousand people.
At 19.30 on March 31, the traffic police announced that traffic on the highway was open. Against this background, the Department for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations of the Rostov Region warned about the risks of flooding of settlements located in low-lying and coastal areas.
The last time a similar situation occurred at the end of 2012 on the M-10 highway in the Vyshny Volochok area. Then, too, a many-kilometer traffic jam formed due to the unpreparedness of truck drivers for a snow-covered road – trucks skidded on an icy road. After that incident, the authorities tried to pass a law prohibiting the operation of cars on summer tires in winter, but in the end this was not done. Now the Ministry of Internal Affairs has prepared the relevant amendments to the traffic rules (on the draft amendments “Kommersant” reported repeatedly).
The Avtodor company is facing natural disasters this year for the second time: at the end of February, more than 40 cars collided on the M-11 in the Nizhny Novgorod region as a result of snowfall and icing on the highway. The Investigative Committee has already opened a criminal case under the article “Performance of work or provision of services that do not meet the requirements of the safety of life or health of consumers.”
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