Marauding polar bears terrorise town of Belushya Guba in Russian Arctic as they invade homes and offices
- Dozens of bears have massed near Belushya Guba, population 2,000, where residents are too frightened to leave their homes
- Climate change has thinned sea ice and forced the bears to forage on land
Fences have risen around kindergartens. Special vehicles transport military personnel to their work sites. Residents of the island settlement are afraid to leave their homes.
Novaya Zemlya is a Russian archipelago stretching into the Arctic Ocean. It once played host to Soviet nuclear tests, including the largest-ever man-made explosion, when the so-called King of Bombs detonated in 1961, releasing 50 megatons of power and deepening an arms race that threatened to turn the cold war hot.
Today, the barren landscape is under siege – from dozens of polar bears locked in their very own sort of hot war. Marine ecologists have long been sounding the alarm about the peril posed by global warming for the vulnerable species.
In the far reaches of Russia, the situation has suddenly become traumatic for humans, too.
Officials in the Arkhangelsk region, where the archipelago lies, on Saturday declared a state of emergency because of the marauding mammals. Polar bears are typically born on land but live mostly on sea ice, where they hunt and feed on seals. But as arctic ice thins, which is linked to the acceleration of climate change, the animals move ashore, ravenous.
They scavenge, sometimes coming into contact with human populations.