ULAN UDE, Russia (AFP) - The tragedy at a Russian power plant shows Russia lags far behind in technology, its president said Monday, in a rare high-level acknowledgement of the country's post-Soviet weaknesses.
President Dmitry Medvedev said the deadly catastrophe last week at Russia's biggest hydroelectric power plant showed that ageing infrastructure which was once the pride of the Soviet Union was in urgent need of modernization."It is clear that a technological catastrophe of unprecedented scale and consequences has taken place," a stern-faced Medvedev told a meeting with officials in Ulan Ude, the capital of the Siberian region of Buryatia.
Investigators have said that a technical fault caused the August 17 flooding tragedy at the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam, which killed at least 69 people with six more still missing and presumed dead."The only truth here is this. Our country is technologically very far behind," said Medvedev."We really are very far behind and if we don't overcome this challenge then all those threats that everyone is talking about will truly become a reality."
No comments:
Post a Comment