Moscow 'hiding heatstroke cases' after death rate jumps

Doctors in Moscow are being told not to diagnose heatstroke as a cause of death after a jump in the mortality rate during the heatwave, Russia media say. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one doctor told the BBC News the unofficial instruction being passed down was to use diagnoses that "sound less frightening."

While wildfires continue to burn, temperatures are starting to drop.

The emergencies ministry reported that as of Thursday morning 66 major fires continued to burn across Russia, 40 of them in peat bogs, which are notoriously difficult to extinguish.

While wildfires continued to burn up to 100km (60 miles) away from the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, experts said there was little danger of serious radioactive contamination.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the fires had destroyed a quarter of the agricultural land where cereals are grown.

Speaking in southern Russia at a meeting on stabilising the grain market, he said rises in the price of foodstuffs must be avoided.

Russia has already suspended exports of wheat.

The number of people said to have been killed by the fires directly stands at 54 after two security personnel died fighting flames near the Sarov nuclear research centre in Nizhny Novgorod.

But little has been revealed officially about the number of people who succumbed to temperatures approaching 40C (104F) and choking smog from the fires.

National mortality figures for the summer have not been reported and when the city of Moscow revealed on Monday that its daily death rate had more than doubled, the federal government swiftly challenged the figures.