The city of Usolye-Sibirskoye, Irkutsk region, almost lost the building of the magistrate’s court – a garage building was attached to the administrative building, where mining equipment caught fire.

Eyewitnesses noticed thick smoke coming from the extension and called the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Firefighters arrived quickly and extinguished the fire, preventing the fire from spreading to the courthouse. The fire area was about 30 meters, and the cause was underground mining – a large amount of equipment for cryptocurrency mining was located in the extension. As the press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Irkutsk region emphasized, there were no casualties from the fire.

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Now EMERCOM investigators are trying to find out whose equipment was located in the annex to the magistrate’s court building. The electrical networks were not designed for such a load and operated in emergency mode, which led to a fire.

Let us recall that the Irkutsk region remains the leader among Russian regions in terms of mining volume, both legal and underground. This is due to an excess of cheap electricity, but the region’s energy system is not ready for a significant increase in energy consumption by miners. Therefore, the regional governor has repeatedly called on the authorities to actively regulate mining. However, according to the deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Technology Anton Gorelkin, the bill on cryptocurrency mining is not yet ready for the first reading.