Russian city’s crisis as pipes explode causing boiling 25ft geysers and mass heating loss

Boiling hot geysers 25ft high suddenly exploded through roads in a Russian city as thousands of residents lost their heating in blistering winter cold. The huge fountains came due to bursts in high-pressure underground pipes carrying hot water to apartment blocks in industrial Lipetsk. Dozens of apartment blocks were cut off from the hot water which is the source of heating for residents amid minus 25C cold. Yevgenia Uvarkina, mayor of Lipetsk, said emergency work would be carried out and promised to restore heating supplies as soon as possible. Locals mocked: “Lipetsk is now a resort city. Now there are also geysers in winter!” The spurting hot fountains and cold apartments in Lipetsk is the latest nightmare from a lack of infrastructure repairs blamed on Vladimir Putin cutting back repair budgets to sink money into his attempt to invade Ukraine. This week has seen hundreds of thousands of Russians forced to endure freezing temperatures in their homes.