Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin could be tapped to head a new disaster-warning agency that will work in parallel with the Emergency Situations Ministry, a major newspaper reported Wednesday.
Rogozin, who is deputy minister in charge of defense issues, could be offered the position July 24 at the first meeting of a new public council on the military-industrial complex, Izvestia reported.
Citing the author of the idea to create the National Disaster-Warning Service, Georgy Melinetsky, the newspaper reported that the new agency would monitor the status of sites considered hazardous and extremely hazardous, and analyze and forecast both natural and man-made disasters.
Melinetsky said there are about 50,000 hazardous and 5,000 extremely hazardous natural and man-made sites, including reservoirs, power plants, bridges and hazardous-materials production sites, which would all be equipped with specialized monitoring equipment.
The cost for outfitting and monitoring the sites would be from 7 billion rubles to 70 billion rubles ($216 million to $2.16 billion), he said.