国际英语新闻：Moscow mortality doubles amid heat and smog

Moscow ambulances are practically working in war-time conditions. The ambulances are not equipped with an air conditioning system and the temperature inside the vehicles sometimes even reached 50 degrees Celsius.

"Sometimes our doctors faint," Novaya Gazeta quoted the medic as saying.

"The daily routine is the most severe thing for us. None of the medical stations have drinking water for the emergency team. We buy it ourselves to water down the patients suffering the heat stroke," the doctor told the paper.

Novaya Gazeta said elderly people and the patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases are primarily at risk.

Meteorologists said Moscow will not be cleared from the smog until next week.

On Monday, a statement published on the Meteonovosti weather forecast website said that the poor ecological situation in Moscow will remain unchanged due to the ongoing southeast winds bringing peat bog smog into the city.

Health experts say that even healthy people may feel sick in these unfriendly conditions.

"People who suffer from heart or lung problems, diabetes, thyroid gland conditions or metabolic disease are dealing with (the ecological situation) extremely hard due to lack of oxygen in the air," the statement said.

Some people were forced to flee Moscow due to the heavy smoke, polluting the air with carbon monoxide 6.5 times the maximum allowable concentration.

A spokesman for the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsia, told media on Monday that some 104,044 passengers departed from Moscow's three airports on Sunday.

The passengers left Moscow's three major international airports for other cities within Russia and abroad, after a backlog of flights from delays over the weekend, the spokesman said.

The peak in the delay of air flights came on Saturday and the beginning of Sunday. However, the situation improved by Sunday evening.

According to the Rosaviatsia spokesman, 879 planes came to Moscow on Sunday, and 845 planes left the city