Cyclones and Hail Claim Victims

A squall, sometimes turning into a real tornado, wreaked havoc when it swept across four districts of Zhytomyr oblast on the night of June 11. As Volodymyr Shust, chief expert with the emergencies and Chornobyl disaster department of the oblast state administration, told The Day (on the morning of June 12 all the top officials of this body went to the affected populated areas), Brusylov district was hit hardest. Eight villages in this district had 340 residential houses damaged or ruined with five people receiving bodily injuries of various degrees, eleven populated areas had electricity cut off, and eight were disconnected from the telephone network. In this district almost eleven kilometers of high-voltage lines were destroyed, about 12,000 hectares of cultivated land and about 100 ha. of woodland were partially or completely devastated, over forty farm machines were damaged or destroyed, and twenty head of cattle were killed. In addition, a club in the village of Pokryshiv and a graveyard in the village of Romanivka were totally devastated. With motor traffic to six destinations blocked, fifteen rescue and repair teams are now overcoming the consequences of this natural disaster. In Korostyshiv district, about 100 residential houses were damaged, the district center and 38 villages had electricity cut off, and 2.5 km. of power grid were damaged. Popilnia district saw 75 houses and four kilometers of high- voltage lines damaged. A kilometer and a half stretch of the Zhytomyr- Berdychiv highway is blocked by uprooted trees. At a conservative estimate, Brusylov district alone has suffered losses worth UAH 100 million, The Day’s Valery KOSTIUKEVYCH reports.

Also on June 12, the disaster area was visited by Vasyl Durdynets, Minister for Emergencies and Protection from Chornobyl Disaster Consequences. Recovery work is being carried out at full capacity.

In Khmelnytsky oblast, a thunderstorm broke out over the village of Berezdiv, Slavuta district. Viktor Pasichnyk, 28, and his wife were in their garden. “As soon as all this began, they went into the house, she following him. Suddenly Pasichnyk was struck by lightning and died before his wife’s eyes,” Oleksandr Nikitchuk, first deputy chairman of the Slavuta district administration, told The Day’s Mykhailo VASYLEVSKY. He added a 15 year-old girl had been fatally struck by lightning in the same place in 1986.

Thunder, lightning, and hail storms were raging at the same time in the villages of Volochysk, Stara Syniava, and Khmelnytsky districts. “It was something unbelievable. Hail as large as eggs caught many people unawares in the pastures, injuring an estimated twelve. A 13 year-old shepherd lost consciousness from such blows: he is now under the care of physicians. Cattle were also injured,” Viktor Kotsemyr, chairman of the Volochysk district administration told us. He said hundreds of houses and farm facilities had had their windows and roofs torn off. Thousands of hectares of cultivated land were disfigured. His counterparts Volodymyr Reida from Stara Syniava and Volodymyr Tsymbaliuk from Khmelnytsky describe the same bleak picture in their areas. Vasyl Velsky, spokesman of the oblast emergencies and civil defense department, says, “Although we so far have no summary information, it is clear that the disaster took an almost incredible toll.” The damage caused is worth millions of hryvnias. Those left homeless have been given tents.