The disaster started on January 22, 2006, when it was freezing 30 degrees, with a burst underground water pipe. As a result, one of the two boiler houses failed in Alchevsk, an industrial city in the Donbas with a population of about 100,000. Almost immediately, half the city was without hot water in one of the coldest winters in decades.
The accident would have had limited consequences if the employees of the boiler house had immediately pumped the water pipes empty. But they waited, for reasons that are unclear, more than six hours. Then it was too late: the water in the pipes was already frozen. Pipes froze all over the city. To make matters worse, the second boiler house also failed due to a power failure.
Alchevsk froze. Radiators failed and the temperature in houses dropped well below freezing. Residents tried to heat their homes with gas ovens and kettles, but they could not withstand the cold.
Evacuation
The authorities saw only one solution: evacuate. Tens of thousands of people were taken to other cities by cars and trains. Families with young children were sheltered in sanatoria in Crimea. Students ended up in the Carpathian Mountains in southwestern Ukraine.
The country saved the city. Ukrainians collected warm clothes, blankets and electric heaters (the city still had electricity) for those left behind. Then-President Viktor Yushchenko traveled to Alchevsk and the government sent more than 3,000 repairmen and rescue workers to the disaster area.
The devastation was so great that it took more than a month for warm water to flow in the city again. The disaster exposed the dire state of obsolete Soviet energy networks in Ukraine. The government promised reforms, but they have only partially been implemented. Alchevsk has been in Russian-occupied territory since 2014.