In Deserted Cities: Silence and Ashes

France24

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“It’s calm and peaceful here, I always have the children in sight,” says Yulia Sadvakassova, using a euphemism as she picks up her son from the end-of-year school celebration. Around Zaozerny stretches the Kazakh steppe as far as the eye can see, its horizon interrupted only by the tower of a cement factory. Only the poster plastered at the school announcing the municipal elections in mid-June 2026 serves as a reminder that life didn’t stand sti…

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While most of the evacuees returned home, almost 80,000 others were still displaced on the evening of July 30th. Whole communes, sometimes very damaged by the flames, are still emptied of their inhabitants. Shops are closed and the streets are deserted. Everywhere, the feeling of being in a ghost village is necessary. Even the beaches, usually stormed by holidaymakers, have lost their usual animation. (Social topics).