YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - Seismologists working on the Russian Far Eastern islands of Sakhalin and Kurils have not received their wages for two months, they are on the verge of strike, the local seismic service told RIA Novosti today.
Moreover, "telephones, the Internet, and e-mail have been shut off because of a three-month payments delay, and we cannot contact the stations promptly enough to forecast a tsunami," a local seismic service official said.
Amid the controversy, Sakhalin is hosting an international earthquake forum marking the 10th anniversary of the 10-Riechter devastating Neftegorsk earthquake of May 28, 1995, which claimed over 2,000 lives.
The forum organized by local academics and the Moscow State University will focus on 1995, a highly seismic year in the Far East.
While that year began on January 17 with the Kobe Earthquake in which 5,300 were killed, hardly anyone anticipated quakes in Neftegorsk, partly because a network of seismic stations built there in Soviet times had been ruined in the early 1990s.
