peat fires

Local photographer captures pillars of smoke rising above the underground peat fire.

Roads blocked, planes diverted due to low visibility, schools shut, people advised to stay home.

'All forest wildfires extinguished' in Siberian Federal District, say officials, but peat flames still raging.

Elsewhere in Russia’s coldest region desperate authorities spike clouds to induce rain and tame wildfires.

Ecology groups warn that the extent of fires in forests and taiga has been misreported by up to 159 times compared with satellite evidence of the grim facts.

Plane schedules disrupted, residents warned to stay indoors, sailors had to use GPS to get back to land because of thick smoke fumes from raging forest fires.

Flights late on Thursday and on Friday suffered disruption due to smog caused by blazes in dry woodland made vulnerable by the current heat wave.

The sensational discovery could lead to a much clearer understanding of a blast which was 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.