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Orange snow in Russia

Luke Harding

THERE IS nothing unusual about snow in the towns and endless forests of Siberia. But when locals in the small village of Pudinskoye woke up on Wednesday last they immediately noticed something rather strange: the snow falling from the sky was orange.

In fact, three regions of southern Siberia — a vast area of industrial towns, pine trees, and the odd bear — on Friday reported the same mysterious phenomenon.

Not only was the snow not white, it also smelt bad. Most of the snow was orange. But some of it was red and yellow as well, officials confirmed, after scrambling to the affected areas to dig up samples. And it was also oily, they discovered.

Russian officials in the Omsk region, 2,200 km from Moscow, swiftly warned local residents not to touch the snow or feed it to their animals.

Russian scientists trying to solve the mystery faced a tricky problem. The region is home to so many polluting industries it was hard to identify which one might have been responsible.

Could it have been the nuclear plant in nearby Mayak? Or the metallurgy and chemicals factory in Ust-Kamenogorsk?

The region is next to north Kazakhstan, a vast area of steppe used by the Soviet Union to conduct its nuclear tests. Or might the rogue snow have been caused by fuel from the space rockets launched in Kazakhstan?

On Friday afternoon, Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry offered an explanation. Officials said a storm in neighbouring Kazakhstan had swept up clay and dust, dumping it on parts of the Tomsk and Omsk regions.

Not everyone was convinced. Russia's environmental watchdog said the snow contained four times higher than normal quantities of iron as well as acids and nitrates.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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