On February 5, speaking at the joint collegium session of Chief Department of Russian Ministry of emergency situations on Tatarstan Republic and Tatarstan Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Situations, head of Tatarstan Ministry of Emergency Situations,  lieutenant-general of Internal service Rafis Khabibullin said that approximately 8,000 Tatarstan citizens were rescued by employees of the ministry in 2014. 

Speaking about firefighting and rescue services, the head of the regional Emergencies Ministry said: “The time needed for teh fire brigade to arrive at the site of fire accident was decreased to about 18%, while the time of fire extinguishing was reduced to more than 1 %. In 2014, fire-fighting teams responded over 25,000 times, 5,000 of which were accounted for extinguishing burning grass and garbage. In this case, total expenses amounted to  6,107,000 roubles. These fire responses could have been prevented, if the heads of utilities services, municipalities and agricultural producers had followed Russian fire regulations”, Rafis Khabibullin reported.

The search and rescue services carried out about 2,500 search and rescue operations in 2014, saving over 1,000 people. Special attention should be given to water accidents despite the fact that their amount was decreased. Taking into consideration the results of rescue operations, it was decided to allocate 8.7 billion roubles on material and technical development of  firefighting and rescue units, Khabibullin said.

Acting Tatarstan Prime Minister Aleksey Pesoshin appreciated the work of Chief Department of Russian Ministry of emergency situations on Tatarstan Republic in 2014. 

Summarizing the session, Pesoshin reminded that the ministry was charged with providing security on the XVI World Aquatics Championship and World Masters Championship 2015 as well as during elections of the president of Tatarstan Republic.