Passengers on the Moscow metro were given free bottles of water at one station on Tuesday as temperatures underground hit 26.7 degrees Celsius, a spokesman for the metro said Tuesday, according to the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper.
Passengers at the Gray Line's Yuzhnaya station were met on the platform with the free drinks.
Metro staff must hand out free water if the temperature remains above 28 degrees for a period of four consecutive hours. If high temperatures persist, passengers also receive free hand fans.
Reports surfaced Monday of a metro passenger dying from heart failure brought on by excessive heat inside a train carriage. A spokesman for the Moscow metro on Tuesday denied that a passenger had died but confirmed that a man was taken away from the Bitzevsky Park station in an ambulance, the TASS news agency reported.
He added that doctors had not confirmed the reason for the passenger’s poor condition and that the temperature at the station was no higher than the acceptable limit of 28 degrees at the time of the incident.
The TASS news agency reported last month that lighter, slatted summer doors would in June be fitted at the entrances to three stations in an attempt to improve ventilation.
The Kuznetsky Most, Dmitrovskaya and Yuzhnaya stations are piloting the new doors — these stations regularly record the network’s hottest temperatures.
Temperatures in the mid to high twenties are set to continue for the rest of the week.
