Owners of thermal power plant in Kazakhstan's Ridder brought it to crisis, regional authorities seek to transfer facility back to communal ownership

ALMATY. Dec 1 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) - The whole of the Ridder thermal power plant equipment was extremely worn out, the owners brought the facility to a critical state, Danial Akhmetov, the acting governor of East Kazakhstan region, said.

Not a single boiler unit had been prepared for the heating season, repair teams had to carry out absolutely all work from electrics to welding; power engineers from Kazan (the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan) helped local specialists and now three fixed high-pressure boilers will allow maintaining the temperature regime even in difficult situations and severe weather conditions, Akhmetov wrote on social media.

His initiative to transfer the thermal power plant to communal ownership has been approved by the Kazakh government, according to Akhmetov.

As reported earlier, the emergency at the Ridder thermal power plant in East Kazakhstan region disrupted the heating supply in the town and a taskforce was set up to respond to.

On November 5 at 8.00 p.m. the pump failure in the ash removal system led to the emergency shutdown of boiler No. 1; the temperature in the boiler dropped from +70°C to +39 °C leaving 22,000 residents of Ridder without heat supply, Akhmetov posted on social media at the time.

By order of the acting head of the Ridder education office schoolchildren switched to distance learning on November 7-11 and the town's preschool centers suspended their activity during this time, according to him.