Scores of Drunk Russians Drown Amid Heat Wave

With temperatures in Moscow flirting with a 98.6F record, a staggering number of Russians, most of them drunk, are drowning in their attempts to cool off in the city’s lakes and ponds. Just yesterday, 49 people in the country drowned, including two children, a government official tells Reuters. “Russia’s Emergencies Ministry is very worried,” the official said. “The majority of those drowned were drunk. The children died because adults simply did not look after them.”

More than 1,200 people have drowned since the beginning of June, including 233 between July 5 and 12. Meteorologists expect the heat wave to last another week. The government has declared a state of emergency in the most affected regions—which together have roughly the same combined area as Portugal. (More Russia stories.)