Residents in Novomoskovsk, a city in the Tula region, faced a severe heating outage after an accident at a regional power facility. Reports indicate that radiators in several apartments cooled down significantly the night before, leaving families, including those with young children, struggling to stay warm as cold air crept through living spaces. Local accounts describe how two heaters failed to maintain a comfortable temperature, forcing some households to seek shelter with relatives who had access to heat. This disruption underscored the fragility of the building stock and the vulnerability of households during power-related incidents, particularly in winter months.
One resident, Elena, stated that she returned home around 9 p.m. to find the apartment temperature hovering around 14 °C. The two space heaters available could not compensate for the drop in warmth, and she concluded that staying indoors with three children was untenable. Elena said she planned to keep her children home from kindergarten and school until the situation improved, underscoring concerns about children’s comfort and safety in such conditions.
In the early morning hours, another resident, Oksana, reported a continued decline in indoor temperatures. The apartment block relies on central heating, and Oksana noted that the building is an older structure with a ground floor location and two gas stoves in use. With four children at home, including a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a seven-month-old, the family employed warm clothing and kept one room door closed to conserve heat. Oksana explained that the home, which had previously managed to heat effectively, now struggled to reach acceptable warmth because the building itself is old and less capable of retaining heat under strain.
During a visit to the local kindergarten, Oksana observed that staff were asking parents to dress children in warm clothing and to collect them earlier than usual, citing the unheated conditions in the groups. She described a situation where parents faced the dilemma of adjusting their work and caregiving routines to accommodate the cold environment in educational settings, and some parents indicated they would not bring their children to school until heat levels improved.
A different local resident, Elena, indicated that even before the accident at the power plant, the apartment batteries were not generating significant warmth. She recounted waking during the night to a room that felt extremely cold, noting that walls remained chilly and air circulated through the space. Elena used an electric heating rug on the wall and moved about the apartment in layered clothing to stay warm, reflecting the improvisational measures families were taking to cope with the outage. She added that prior to the incident, the heating performance had already been suboptimal for some residents, highlighting longstanding concerns about comfort in the area.
On January 14, regional authorities reported that heat supply to 372 apartment buildings, 10 schools, 16 kindergartens, and one hospital in Novomoskovsk was reduced due to an accident at the state district power plant. The cause was identified as a fault in the high voltage input of a transformer switch at the local facility, which disrupted the flow of heat to multiple residential and public buildings. The outage highlighted the interconnected nature of critical infrastructure and the cascading impact a single fault can have on daily life, education, and healthcare services in the region. Marked improvements and a return to normal operations were anticipated as repair work progressed, with authorities coordinating temporary measures to mitigate the cold exposure for vulnerable populations.
Earlier reports noted that nearby Lipetsk also faced heating interruptions, with concerns about residents experiencing a lack of heating or hot water in several buildings. In both cities, the incident underscored the pressing need for resilient heating systems, rapid restoration protocols, and clear communication with residents during emergencies to minimize risk to families, especially those with young children and elderly occupants.
Community members emphasized that the situation required a coordinated response from municipal services, power utility providers, and housing management to restore warmth and ensure safe living conditions. Local residents continued to monitor the status of repairs, seeking timely updates on when normal heat supply would resume and what interim support would be available for households most affected by the outage.