The mortality rate in Moscow soared by 50 per cent in July compared to the same period last year as Russia struggles with its severest heatwave in decades, a registry service official said.
"We recorded 14,340 deaths in Moscow in July, that is 4824 deaths more than in July 2009," said Yevgenia Smirnova, an official from the Moscow registry office.
"The increase started in July, as opposed to June when the figures were largely good. The heatwave has certainly had an influence," she added.
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Unconfirmed reports had spoken of a massive spike in deaths in Moscow over the last month but the authorities had so far denied that this was the case.
The spread of the worst wildfires on record forced Russia on Friday to move missiles, evacuate children from camps and closely monitor radiation levels as Moscow choked under a lung-bursting smog.
The defence ministry overnight ordered the evacuation of missiles from a depot outside Moscow as the authorities warned of the risk of fires reactivating contamination in an area hit by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe.
Moscow commuters, many wearing sanitary masks, wheezed as they made their way to work in the worst smog to hit the capital since the fires broke out over one week ago. Experts said the pollution was well above safe levels.
The emergencies ministry said the total area ablaze was down slightly at 179,600 hectares, but there were still 588 fires across the affected region in European Russia and 248 new fires had appeared over the last 24 hours.
"The situation is stable. The most complicated situation is in the region of Sarov in the Nizhny Novgorod region and in the Moscow region," said the head of the emergencies ministry crisis centre, Vladimir Stepanov.
"This situation has been brought under control and the extinguishing and liquidation of fires is continuing in these regions."
The fires around the city of Sarov are a particular worry for the authorities as the city houses the country's main nuclear research centre. It is still closed to foreigners, as in Soviet times.
The Russian nuclear agency has said that all radioactive and explosive materials have been removed from the centre.
Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Friday his forces were also working flat-out to prevent the fires spreading to a region in western Russia where the soils are still contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster.
"We are painstakingly controlling the situation in the Bryansk region. If a fire appears there, the radioactive particles could fly away with the smoke and a new polluted area could appear," he said.
As well as strategic facilities, the fires were affecting the most diverse areas of life in Russia, from children's holiday camps to animal sanctuaries, reports said.
Rescue workers evacuated 300 children from the Meteor holiday camp in the Moscow region due to the fire situation and pollution eight times higher than the norm.
The biggest sanctuary for animals in the Moscow region, Bim, was also being evacuated for the same reasons.
Moscow's most famous landmarks like the spires of the Kremlin towers and the onion domes of Orthodox churches were largely invisible from a distance and some flights at its Domodedovo international airport were being diverted.
The country is also facing a severe drought and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday banned exports from the world's third wheat exporter until the end of the year.
