MOSCOW — Marina Yarovov was walking her two dogs in a field near her apartment when the earth opened up beneath her and she fell into a pit of muddy, boiling water.
In agony, she tried to climb out of the hole as a friend ran for help. But within minutes, the 43-year-old mother of two was dead--boiled alive in the water that heats the homes and shops of her neighborhood through a vast subterranean network of pipes.
Yarovov, who died March 11, is one of the latest casualties of Moscow's decaying Soviet-era public facilities, which were built on a grand scale but are now in constant need of repair. Officials say they have little money to maintain the aging underground pipes, which bring boiling water from central factories to heat the city's apartments, offices and schools.
"Life is tough enough in Russia without such lethal traps," said Yarovov's angry husband, Igor Yarovov, vowing to pursue legal action against city officials. "It's not wartime, and someone has to take responsibility for people dying in the streets of Moscow in broad daylight."
When the pipes leak, hot water can saturate the soil so thoroughly that the weight of a person walking above is enough to turn the ground into a seething sinkhole.
City officials acknowledge that Moscow has become a "minefield" and predict that without a sudden infusion of cash to repair the pipes, more people will die in the same grisly fashion.
"People will, I am afraid, keep falling in such pits in the future," said a spokeswoman for a city heating agency, Mosenergo. She asked not to be identified further. "I realize that such problems relegate Russia to the status of a Third World country, not a civilized industrial power. But for now we are helpless and can only recommend that people be more careful about where they walk."
Such explanations are not enough for the Mkrtumyan family. Six weeks ago, 10-year-old Artyom Mkrtumyan was walking to a store in his neighborhood when the ground dissolved under his feet and he fell into a boiling pit. His father, Vladimir, jumped into the 225-degree water to rescue his son, but it was too late. Artyom died 11 days later. The elder Mkrtumyan, scalded from the waist down, died two weeks after his son.
"I hate the country where human life costs nothing, where children die and no one is responsible," said Galina Mkrtumyan, the boy's mother. "All the rights that have been declared exist only on paper. I am scared to live in a city where the city administration is waging a clandestine war on its own people."
