Accidents hit a number of power substations today to leave without electricity many Moscow neighborhoods and settlements in the city environs and the adjacent Tula Region.
Trains came to a standstill in several Moscow metro lines. Trams, trolleybuses and suburban trains also stopped. Water and electric supplies were suspended in many parts of the city to badly harass hospitals and other vital institutions. Streets were desperately jammed with traffic lights out.
UES CEO Anatoli Chubais acknowledged his personal responsibility. His statement followed an emergency conference on the federal government premises.
"I know what the president said. The only possible conclusion from the situation is an industrial accident of a national scope. It goes without saying, in particular, that the UES board chair is to blame," he said in an interview.
President Putin said the company had not been sufficiently careful about its routine activities. "We have ample reason to assume that the UES had not paid enough attention to its everyday power industrial work. They ought not only to engage in problems linked to global energy policies and to a corporate reform [now underway] but also to mind their urgent duties," he said while commenting the accident for the media.
Preliminary expert analyses said the crisis was due to technological reasons, added Putin. "I don't think the problem stems in the equipment wear-and-tear alone, though that is certainly one of the reasons-the accident-hit substation has its basic machinery on the 1962 standards."
The president next enumerated other reasons-maintenance works and overhauls made behind the schedule and, he repeated, insufficient attention of the company's top to its everyday duties.
