The death toll from wildfires raging in the Nizhny Novgorod region in the Volga area has risen to 14 people, the regional emergencies center reported on Sunday.
Earlier reports said 12 people had been killed in wildfires in the region.
Over the past two days, the villages of Verkhnyaya Vereya and Shernavka have been burned to the ground in the Vyksun district of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. As many as 341 homes were burnt out in Verkhnyaya Vereya and six homes in Shernavka.
"During the operation to clear the debris of the houses burnt out in Verkhnyaya Vereya, the firefighters discovered two more bodies. Therefore, the death toll from the fires in the Nizhny Novgorod has risen to 14," the emergencies center said.
Temperatures across much of western and central Russia have topped 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) in the past five weeks, causing peat bog and forest fires and creating what is thought to be the worst drought in the country since 1972.
Over the last 24 hours, over 1,000 homes have been destroyed and entire villages burned to the ground in the largest wildfire ever to hit the European part of Russia.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday ordered the government to take urgent additional measures to fight the fires and to allocate funds for damage compensation. Medvedev has also called for proposals to be drawn up on the purchase of additional firefighting equipment, including Be-200 aircraft.
MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti)
