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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Africa Europe Latin America Middle East North America Search Search: Dam tragedy shows Russia lags behind: president AFP - Tuesday, August 25 ULAN UDE, Russia (AFP) - - The tragedy at a Russian power plant shows Russia lags far behind in technology, its president said Monday, in a rare high-level acknowledgement of the country's post-Soviet weaknesses. ADVERTISEMENT President Dmitry Medvedev said the deadly catastrophe last week at Russia's biggest hydroelectric power plant showed that ageing infrastructure which was once the pride of the Soviet Union was in urgent need of modernization. "It is clear that a technological catastrophe of unprecedented scale and consequences has taken place," a stern-faced Medvedev told a meeting with officials in Ulan Ude, the capital of the Siberian region of Buryatia. Investigators have said that a technical fault caused the August 17 flooding tragedy at the Sayano-Shushenskaya dam, which killed at least 69 people with six more still missing and presumed dead. "The only truth here is this. Our country is technologically very far behind," said Medvedev. "We really are very far behind and if we don't overcome this challenge then all those threats that everyone is talking about will truly become a reality." Russia's leaders are usually at pains to trumpet the country's technological prowess and Medvedev's comments marked a rare acknowledgement of the difficulties that have followed the Soviet collapse. Work on the dam -- an awesome monolith spanning the Yenisei River -- began in the 1960s and it had been hailed as a triumph of Soviet engineering. But the facility has now been completely shut down since the disaster and officials have admitted it will take three years to complete repairs. Medvedev pinpointed a lack of expertise as a major problem, after many of Russia's best minds left for the West in the latter part of the 20th century. "The protective stock that had been created in Soviet times has been depleted. We should openly admit this. The question of qualified personnel is at the forefront." He said Russia's infrastructure required urgent attention and in many cases "this infrastructure is inefficient and in need of immediate modernization". Medvedev said private and state-owned enterprises had to work together and "then we'll have the result that everyone's counting on, that is, to create a modern country". But Medvedev also adopted tough rhetoric reminiscent of his mentor Vladimir Putin as he lashed out at Russia's enemies for predicting "apocalyptic" scenarios for the country after the tragedy. "Those who don't like Russia within its existing borders and don't like its role in the world started rubbing their hands," he said. He said that in some quarters the disaster was being seen as the "Chernobyl of the 21st century", referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster that severely embarrassed the Soviet Union. Despite the problems, such notions of a Russian collapse were "nonsense", Medvedev said. On Friday a radical Islamist group, Riyadus Salikhiin, claimed that it had triggered the disaster by detonating an anti-tank grenade in the plant's turbine hall as part of a campaign of "economic war" against Russia. But the investigative committee of Russian prosecutors on Monday said this had been refuted as a possible cause: "It has been established that the accident was of a technical nature," it said. "The concrete causes of the accident will be determined in the course of the investigation. The investigation has fully examined the theory of a terrorist attack and refuted it." However the authorities have still not given a conclusive explanation of what happened, saying several theories remain under consideration. Email Story IM Story Printable View Blog This Sign in to recommend this article » 0 users recommend Related Articles: World In the red, US school districts cut yellow busesAP - Tuesday, August 25 Je t'aime: French text msgs now divorce evidenceAP - Tuesday, August 25 Reality show contestant found dead in Canada motelAP - 2 hours 16 minutes ago Malawi child tobacco workers exposed to nicotineAP - Tuesday, August 25 Michael Jackson's mother praises Vienna tributeAP - Tuesday, August 25 Enlarge Photo The severely damaged Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station in Cheryomushky, Siberia. The disaster last week at Russia's biggest hydroelectric dam that is feared to have killed 75 shows the country lags very far behind in technology, President Dmitry Medvedev said. 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