RUSSIAN PLANES WORK TO ENTICE RAIN FOR RAGING FIRES

Russian planes seeded clouds to bring down rain on huge wildfires raging in the Siberian region of Yakutia that in one place spread dangerously close to a hydroelectric power plant, authorities said on Monday. Fires have flared across Russia amid a heat wave, tearing through over 1.5 million hectares of land in Yakutia, the worst-hit region. On Sunday, officials told people to stay indoors and to keep windows shut due to the smoke. The regional capital Yakutsk, sometimes known as the planet's coldest city, was forced to suspend flights at its airport due to bad visibility, and transport on the river Lena that carves through Siberia was also interrupted. Fires flare across Russian forest land annually, but they have become more intense in recent years amid unusually high temperatures across the northern Siberian tundra.