Sixteen deaths and more than 200 injuries have been reported following a massive storm that hit Moscow on Monday, May 29. More than 100 people, including nearly two-dozen children, remain in the hospital. Russia’s Interfax news agency is calling the storm one of the deadliest in more than a century.
The storm occurred during the daytime rush hour traffic, which contributed to the high death count. Moscow’s major, Sergei Sobyanin, told Russia’s state-run news agency, TASS, that he couldn’t remember “any other such calamity with the number of dead and injured as big as this one.”
With winds at nearly 70 miles per hour, the storm flattened traffic and advertising signs, impaired electrical cables, and tore the roofs from houses. Thousands of trees toppled, blocking roads and sending branches flying in all directions. In total, more than 2,000 vehicles and around 243 buildings were damaged, including the roof of the Kremlin Senate. High winds also disrupted local train services and delayed dozens of flights from Moscow’s airports.
A Kremlin spokesperson told reporters that Russian authorities “just don’t know if such natural cataclysms are predictable and can be forecast.” By Tuesday afternoon, more than 30,000 municipal workers were attempting to clean up debris and fallen trees from the city’s streets.
The restraining Spirit of God is even now being withdrawn from the world. Hurricanes, storms, tempests, fire and flood, disasters by sea and land, follow each other in quick succession. Science seeks to explain all these. The signs thickening around us, telling of the near approach of the Son of God, are attributed to any other than the true cause. Men cannot discern the sentinel angels restraining the four winds that they shall not blow until the servants of God are sealed; but when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 6, page 408.