Kurscha-2
Kurscha-2 ( Russian Ку́рша-2 ) was a town in Ryazan Oblast , Soviet Union .
Infrastructure
The place was built after the October Revolution . It served as a workers' settlement for woodcutters and their families. The place was connected to the Tuma-Golowanowo railway network via a narrow-gauge railway. The felled wood was transported by steam locomotives to Tuma for further processing - and from there on to Ryazan and Vladimir .
Fire disaster in August 1936
On August 3, 1936, the most casualty known forest fire disaster in Europe and, after the firestorm in Peshtigo , the second most severe surviving worldwide occurred in the place . The day before, a fire broke out in the pine forests not far from the workers' settlement for an unknown cause. A train had been ordered to evacuate the town's residents. After the people boarded the train, the departure was delayed because the train conductor had given instructions to load additional logs. When the train started, it had to stop after about three kilometers in front of a burning wooden bridge and was thus surrounded by the fire. All inmates perished in the fire.
According to eyewitness reports, the Kurscha-2 fire claimed around 1200 lives, effectively wiping out the town's population, which regularly housed more than 1000 seasonal workers. Only 20 people survived.
Commemoration
Since the Soviet government tried to cover up the incident or to cover up the extent of the tragedy, there was hardly any media coverage of the incident. A processing of the events or at least a Russia-wide commemoration of the victims of the tragedy never took place and there is little data on the disaster in museums and in the literature.
A cross was erected on site in 2011 and a plaque commemorates the victims who are buried in a mass grave.
After the fire accident
The almost completely destroyed place was rebuilt on a much smaller scale after the fire. In the post-war period, Kurscha-2 was only sparsely populated. The settlement was finally abandoned shortly after the Second World War . In 2006, the 90-year-old Iraida Konstantinovna Runowa lived in Golowanowo, seven kilometers away, as the only contemporary witness and survivor of the accident.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://genieunique.blogspot.com/2015/09/5-most-deadly-forest-fire-all-time.html
- ↑ a b c Курша-2: огненный шквал.
- ↑ Новости: В Рязанской области увековечили память погибших на пожаре 1936 года. August 5, 2011, Retrieved August 3, 2019 (Russian).
Coordinates: 54 ° 56 ′ 13.9 ″ N , 40 ° 33 ′ 28.1 ″ E