What is the 'rotten egg cloud'? Locals are told to stay inside after mysterious noxious fog swamps Moscow.
People in Russian capital Moscow were today urged to stay indoors after an acrid cloud smelling of rotten eggs engulfed the city.
The air 'reeked of sulphide' including over Red Square but experts said they were struggling to understand its source or cause.
One unconfirmed theory was that an industrial plant had leaked a cloud of Styrene over Moscow.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry recommended Muscovites to stay indoors while experts tried to understand the cause.
This is how Moscow normally looks on a sunny day:
Under the mysterious fog:
'We suggest people in the capital minimise time they spend outside, and keep windows and doors shut,' said a warning.
Alexander Drobyshevsky, the Ministry's spokesman, said: 'Specialists are taking air tests all around the city. As soon as we have results, we will let you know,'
Major news outlet gazeta.ru warned: 'An acrid fog covers Moscow. A strong hydrogen sulphide emission recorded in the Russian capital.'
The stench was reported to be coming from eastern districts of Moscow, where a strong emission of pollutants was recorded on Monday.
From early morning dozens of phone calls were made to an environmental hotline.
Russian Meteorological Station experts confirmed a sulphide emission in the area of Lyublino.
'We can only record a several times higher concentration of sulphide in the air. We can't yet explain reasons for the emission,' said a spokesman.
Another highly concentrated 'poisonous cloud' covered the Kozhukhovo area of eastern Moscow.
'It was sunny until 9am, the sky was clear. After 9am a strange fog covered the whole area,' said Irina Chichkina of ecological movement 'Green Kozhykhovo'.
'I've never seen a fog like this. There is also a smell, similar to sulphide.'
In Kozhukhovo, a monitoring station showed doubled the normal concentration of toxic styrene in the area.
A local man called Alexander Demenko posted on his Facebook from a locality of Moscow badly his by the 'pollution': 'Styrene affects the peripheral nervous system, the haematopoietic system and even the female reproductive organs.
'There are 80,000 people living in the area, my wife and two children among them. Today for me and my family it is a day of survival in the clearest sense of this word.'
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