Coal Shortage and Cold Force Czech School Closings

As subfreezing temperatures swept Czechoslovakia, a nationwide coal shortage forced officials to close some schools across the country Wednesday.

“The situation for supplies of coke in some elementary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Prague is critical,” said Petr Koza, the Prague superintendent of schools.

Koza said some schools will have “coal holidays,” and other reports tell of school directors sending children home to do their lessons or of moving classes to buildings with heat. Among the schools affected were at least two dozen in Prague.

The senior official in charge of coal for Czechoslovakia, Jozef Snitily of the Federal Steelmaking Ministry, said the shortage was due partly to hoarding by private citizens and small distributors before recent price rises and partly to the introduction of free market reforms.

Snitily blamed the imposition of price controls on retail coal sales while subsidies were removed from Czechoslovakia’s inefficient mines. He said coal processors were further squeezed by interest rates that shot up to 24% from 2% since last winter, forcing processors to halve their usual six- to eight-week supply of coal and coke.

Snitily said special government credits to coal processors could help end the crisis.

In Nove Hute Kuncice, in East Slovakia, a coal distributor told the Prague newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes that suppliers delivered only 30% of the coal and coke ordered.

“Our warehouses are completely empty,” said Jitka Paucinova, a coal distributor in Hradec Kralove, an industrial center 35 miles from Prague.