KIEV, January 30 (RIA Novosti) - Heating supplies are to be restored on a failed heat supply system in southern Ukraine within the next few days, the country's president said Monday during a visit to the affected region.
Viktor Yushchenko said that incompetence on the part of authorities in the city of Alchevsk was to blame for the failure, which left more than 70,000 residents without heating during a spell of unusually cold weather, as air temperatures plunged below minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit).
"The local authorities failed to solve the problems facing the city," Yushchenko said. A criminal case had been opened into the incident, he said.
The president also said the country's utilities sector would undergo drastic reforms in 2006, with Alchevsk as a testing ground.
