Floods swamp swathes of Russia and Kazakhstan but worse still to come
WATER LEVELS RISE IN URALS CITY OF ORENBURG
FLOODING IN URALS, SIBERIA, VOLGA AND KAZAKHSTAN
ORENBURG, RUSSIA: Floods engulfed cities and towns across Russia and Kazakhstan on Wednesday after Europe’s thirdlongest river burst its banks, forcing about 110,000 people to evacuate and swamping parts of the Russian city of Orenburg.
The deluge of melt water overwhelmed scores of settlements in Russia’s Ural Mountains, Siberia, Volga and areas of Kazakhstan after major rivers such as the Ural, which flows into the Caspian, rose more 70 cm (2 foot 3 inches) beyond its bursting point to over 10 metres. In Orenburg, a city with a population of 550,000 about 1,200 km east of Moscow, hundreds of homes were flooded and at least 7,700 people were evacuated as the Ural river rose swiftly beyond critical levels.
Whole areas of the city were under water. Residents in Orenburg paddled along roads that now resembled rivers and waters lapped at the windows of traditional wooden houses.
In Kurgan, a region which straddles the Tobol river, 4,500 people were evacuated and fears grew that thousands — or even tens of thousands — more would need to evacuated.
“The forecast is unfavourable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “The water level continues to rise in flood zones, large amounts of water are coming to new regions.”
The flood situation was acute in parts of Western Siberia, the largest hydrocarbon basin in the world, where the peak is expected in three to five days, and some areas around the Volga, Europe’s largest river, the emergencies ministry said.
Residents in Orenburg said it was the worst flooding in living memory while Russian officials said it was the worst flooding in the area since records began. Kazakhstan said more than 97,000 people had been evacuated.
Russia said 10,500 houses were flooded across 37 regions, most in the Orenburg region. Upstream on the Ural, which flows into Kazakhstan, floodwaters burst through an embankment dam in the city of Orsk on Friday. In Kazakhstan, people worked through the night to build up dykes and strengthen embankments. A state of emergency remained in effect in eight of the country’s 17 provinces, down from 10 at the end of last week. Unverified footage from the Aktobe region of northern Kazakhstan, through which the Ilek, a tributary of the Ural, flows, showed dead cattle, settlements covered in silt, with scores of mud-brick houses and embankments collapsed.