RIGA, Dec 23 (LETA) - The council of Latvia's second largest city of Daugavpils plans to declare an energy crisis after the winter holidays, ReTV channel reported Thursday. 

Representatives of the city's government indicated that in the past three months the local authority had been doing everything it could financially to avoid a heating crisis and the situation where it would have to seek state assistance.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry said it anticipates more municipalities to be hit by similar crises soon. 

With the gas price having grown more than tenfold in global markets, the price hikes have  been pushing up heating tariffs in Latvia's municipalities. ReTV notes that Daugavpils is the first municipality in Latvia to sound the alarm - although the city had managed to keep the heating tariff unchanged in recent months, the local government now admits that its resources are exhausted. 

Daugavpils mayor Andrejs Elksnins (Harmony) informs that all this time the city's government had managed to keep the heating tariff down thanks to a woodchip-fired boiler house and that the city had been buying gas below the exchange prices. 

"By February, the city's internal resources will be exhausted," Elksnins said, adding that the central government's involvement will be needed to tackle the energy crisis.