Russians demand help from Putin after floods

A major flood in the southern Urals forced thousands of Russians to evacuate their homes, and residents of Orsk, one of the disaster’s epicentres, took to the streets to criticise the authorities’ response and demand help from President Vladimir Putin.

Extreme seasonal floods hit northern parts of Kazakhstan and Russia’s Orenburg region across the border, where the situation was worsened by the collapse of a dam over the weekend. Kazakh media reported that more than 15,000 people had evacuated since water started rising in the first days of April.

The Ural River, which runs from the Ural Mountains to the Caspian Sea, burst through a dam on Saturday in Orsk, a city of about 200,000 people.

Russia’s main investigative body, the Investigative Committee, opened a criminal case as a result of “violation of safety measures” and “negligence,” citing the dam’s poor maintenance as a cause of the breach.

Another part of the dam burst a day later, further flooding villages in the area. The Orsk oil refinery suspended work on Monday to mitigate ecological risks.

Authorities said that over 6500 people had been evacuated and that more than 10,000 homes were flooded throughout the region.

The local prosecutor’s office warned residents against staging any demonstrations, saying violators would be given administrative arrests, but several hundred people gathered outside the mayor’s office in Orsk on Monday.

In videos posted by local outlets, protesters are seen chanting “Shame!” and “Putin, help us!” and complained they had to find their own boats and rescue relatives and livestock by themselves.

The demonstrations were a rare show of public outrage in Russia, where severe wartime repressions have squashed virtually all public dissent.

The Kremlin has warned that water levels in some areas are rising faster than at any time in the past century.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had ordered the governors of the two regions east of the river, Tyumen and Kurgan, to prepare for an “expected sharp rise in water levels” and “inevitable” floods. Peskov added that so far Putin doesn’t plan to travel to the flooded regions.

Orenburg officials have estimated the flood damage at about 20,700 billion roubles (NZ$374 million) so far.

The dam was designed to withstand water levels no higher than 5.5m, but by Sunday, the river had risen to 9.5m, according to regional authorities.

Since the dam was built about a decade ago, it has been subject to several investigations regarding embezzlement and construction mistakes. – Washington Post