SEPT. 4 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan has sent 520 soldiers to help try and put out forest fires around the city of Gabala, media reported. The emergencies ministry has said that high winds and unseasonably hot temperatures had whipped up the fires. Fire teams across Georgia and Armenia have also been dealing with forest fires this year.
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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)
AUG. 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — An explosion at a chemical manufacturing plant in Nairit, Armenia, ignited a fire that raged for at least two days. The chemicals plant has been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years, with management sacking two-thirds of the staff en mass in 2015. The plant is currently owned by Samvel Karapetyan, one of Armenia’s richest men, through his company Electric Networks of Armenia. It is unclear if anybody was hurt in the explosion and what caused it.
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(News report from Issue No. 342, published on Sept. 7 2017)
AUG. 27 (The Conway Bulletin) — At least six people were injured when a weapons depot at a military base around 70km north of Baku exploded, hospital sources in Azerbaijan told media (Aug. 27).
In 2016, a blast at an arms factory near Baku killed at least two people and injured 22 more.
Eyewitness reports described a series of massive explosions at the base. Emergency services closed off nearby roads and evacuated two villages.
Azerbaijan’s defence ministry declined to comment on reports that a number of people had been injured.
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(News report from Issue No. 341, published on Aug. 27 2017)
AUG. 15 2017 (The Bulletin) — A fire destroyed up to 2,750 hectares of ancient forest in Armenia, Russian news agencies quoted ecologists as saying. Firefighters and military water-carrying planes took four days to control the fire that spread quickly because of the unusually dry conditions. Much of the Khosrov forest, reportedly planted in the 4th century, is made up of oak trees.
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(News report from Issue No. 340, published on Aug. 20 2017)
JULY 3 2017 (The Bulletin) — A fire burnt down most of the biggest bazaar in Dushanbe, destroying hundreds of people’s livelihoods. Police have not yet determined how the fire at the Korvon bazaar started but arson has not been ruled out. The state news agency reported that President Emomali Rakhmon ordered his officials to exempt traders from rent and other taxes.
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(News report from Issue No. 336, published on July 16 2017)
MARCH 18 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A small fire damaged the Tajik parliament building, media reported quoting interior ministry officials. They said that a computer overheating was to blame for the fire a parliamentary reception area. Photos from parliament showed two windows with black scorch marks. Nobody was injured in the fire.
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(News report from Issue No. 322, published on March 27 2017)
FEB. 24 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A blast at a chemical plant in Ferghana, east Uzbekistan, on Feb. 23 killed several people, the Uzbek government said.
It declined to give any more details about the blast, other than to report that an investigation had been set up, but the Sputnik news agency quoted a source at the fertiliser factory as saying that at least five people had been killed and that several more had been injured.
“A total of five people have been killed at the site of the explosion, all of them were part of a repair team. Several others are now in a hospital,” the source told Sputnik, a Russian news agency.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said that the blast occurred at the ammonia production facility of the Farg’onaazot company which produces fertilisers.
Analysts will look at how Presi- dent Shavkat Mirzioyev, in power since September when Islam Karimov died, and his government handle this industrial accident – both releasing information about it and dealing with any potential local anger.
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(News report from Issue No. 318, published on Feb.24 2017)
DEC. 20 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Ruslan Smykov, a presenter with the Kazakh TV news channel First Channel Eurasia, resigned after he broadcast a fake news interview with a Russian TV host. It’s unclear why Mr Smykov broadcast the fake interview but the incident does highlight the weak editorial control in the Kazakh media.
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(News report from Issue No. 310, published on Dec. 23 2016)
DEC. 15 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Nine oil workers were missing after an oil rig partially collapsed during a storm in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea that killed at least one person, Azerbaijan’s state energy company SOCAR said.
The collapse came almost exactly a year after a fire on two Azerbaijani oil platforms killed 30 oil workers in the worst offshore accident in the energy sector since 167 people died in the Piper Alpha fire in the North Sea in 1988.
The latest accident will embarrass SOCAR and Azerbaijan’s oil sector because it had promised to improve safety after the deaths in 2015.
Much of the infrastructure that SOCAR uses in the Caspian Sea is decades old and Azerbaijan has been heavily criticised for not updating and modernising its structures.
The oil industry is also vital to the Azerbaijani economy. It has been under pressure to maintain oil output despite the aging infrastructure and aging fields.
SOCAR officials said that emergency services are still looking for the nine missing oil workers.
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(News report from Issue No. 309, published on Dec. 16 2016)
NOV. 19 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Seven migrant workers from Tajikistan died in a fire in the metal container they were using as their living quarters on a construction site in Siberia, media reported.
Investigators said that the cause was likely to be a short-circuit in the electric heater which was warming the container. The container had been lined with wood and felt to keep out the severe cold.
This is the third major accident involving migrant workers this year. In January a roof collapsed onto a sewing workshop in Moscow, killing at least 12 migrant workers and in September a fire in a printing workshop killed at least 16 women workers from Kyrgyzstan.
Remittances from Russia is a vital source of income for countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, especially for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
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(News report from Issue No. 306, published on Nov. 25 2016)
