Minesweepers must make Ukraine’s war repairs safe before power returns | – #Minesweepers #Ukraines #war #repairs #safe #power #returns
KOROVIY YAR, Ukraine, 20 March (Reuters) – of Ukraine On the outskirts of the village of Koroviy Yar in the east, a team of engineers has to wait for several hours before carrying out repairs on power lines damaged during the fighting. it was occupied by Russian troops last fall.
The delay was unexploded in an area littered with heavy fighting and anti-personnel and anti-tank mines left behind by retreating Russian troops. military related to ammunition risk.
of Ukraine It will take years to clear the entire east of the country from such threats, but demining teams should be a priority as the country tries to restore electricity, water and heat to towns and villages cut off by war damage.
“This primarily concerns critical infrastructure facilities,” Kostyantyn Apalkov, head of the demining division of the State Emergency Service for the Donetsk region, told Reuters on Monday.
“These are power lines, gas pipelines, aqueducts and similar facilities are settlements where people live.”
As he spoke, eight minesweepers in protective clothing and armed with metal detectors moved slowly along the path beneath the damaged power cables, looking for anything that might harm the maintenance workers or their equipment.
Such painstaking work is carried out in the region where the fiercest battles of the war were fought; artillery fire roared almost continuously from distant fronts.
Demining is vital, but it also delays the restoration of essential services and of Ukraine emphasizes the difficulty faced in returning to normalcy in the occupied territories.
Emergency services in Donetsk alone have not exploded since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February last year military responded to more than 4,000 calls to eliminate the munitions threat.
About 30 km (18.64 mi) south of the city of Slovyansk, the effects of the war are everywhere. Burnt-out tanks litter the trenches, villages are in ruins, unexploded rockets emerge from the fields, and muddy roads are the only way out.
After about an hour of demining, Apalkov’s team finds three anti-personnel mines on the ground near an abandoned vehicle. They are detonated remotely and the electrical repair team can finally get to work.
Reporting by Mike Collett-White Editing by Tomasz Janowski
Our standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
2023-03-21 01:05:52
Source – reuters
Translation“24 HOURS”