MOSCOW. Dec 14 (Interfax-AVN) - The number of victims of terrorist attacks increased 2.5 times in Russia in 2004, said Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu.
"In total, 12 terrorist attacks have been staged in Russia this year. The Beslan tragedy alone took the lives of 329 people, most of them children," Shoigu told the ministry's senior officials on Tuesday.
He also said that the Ministry has carried out more than 16,000 rescue operations, rescuing over 93,000 people. Aid has been given to over 1.8 million victims.
The Ministry's largest operations in 2004 were the clearing of the rubble at the scenes of a Moscow swimming pool disaster, of an apartment building bombing in Arkhangelsk, and of the terrorist attacks in Moscow, in the Rostov and Tula regions, and in Beslan, and operations to put down forest fires in the Kurgan region and to evacuate local residents from the inundated zones in Yakutia.
Shoigu said that 39 states assisted Russia to deal with the aftermath of the Beslan tragedy. Over 123 million rubles ($4.39 million) in humanitarian aid was delivered to North Ossetia. Financial aid was worth about $1.5 million.