MOSCOW. Oct 6 (Interfax-AVN) - The Emergencies Ministry has submitted to the government a draft document on the state civil defense policy for up to 2010.
"Before the submission, in September, the document was discussed by the civil defense chiefs of Russian regions in the presence of Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov," Colonel Viktor Beltsov, deputy chief of the Emergencies Ministry press service, told Interfax-Military News Agency Monday.
October 4 was the 71st anniversary of the civil defense system.
Currently civil defense units make up the core of the Emergencies Ministry rapid response forces. They are assigned detection and marking of NBC-affected areas, protection of the population, decontamination of vehicles, buildings, and inhabited areas, and S&R operations in disaster areas.
After the current reform, Beltsov said, the civil defense system will be made up of 14 regional rescue centers. By 2004 the civil defense forces will have slightly more than 20,000 personnel.
He said that civil defense personnel was frequently involved in search and rescue in natural disaster and armed conflict areas, including North and South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Georgia, Transdniestria, Tajikistan, Chechnya, and Afghanistan.
"Military rescue forces have been involved in the liquidation of about 40,000 natural and industrial disasters, and saved above 65,000 people," Beltsov said.