Emergency services are still evacuating residents from towns affected by rising waters. Three days after the start of the floods, after the rupture of a dam in Orsk in Russia, more than 10,000 residential buildings were flooded in the Russian regions of the Urals, the Volga and in western Siberia, it was announced on Monday rescue.
“More than 10,400 residential buildings are flooded,” said the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which still expects a rise in temperatures, increased melting of snow and the breaking of winter ice covering rivers and streams.
A “critical” situation
On Sunday, Russian Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov described the situation as “critical” in Orsk, in the Orenburg region, on the border with Kazakhstan, which led to the evacuation of several thousand residents of the area, in full melting ice. More than 4,500 homes have been flooded and more than 4,000 people have already been evacuated to temporary accommodation centers.
The streets of the city of Orsk in the Orenburg Region turned into real rivers after the dam on the Ural River burst on Friday evening. pic.twitter.com/4tIGcM8C3L
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According to local authorities, the river level in Orsk fell slightly this Monday morning by nine centimeters, but it is still increasing in the regional capital Orenburg which has 570,000 inhabitants. Russia's official meteorological agency, Rosgidromet, said it expected a peak on Wednesday in the city and its surrounding areas.
Kazakhstan also affected
The mayor of this city indicated that the region had not experienced similar floods of this magnitude in decades. “We haven't seen so much water in Orenburg for a long time. The record was in 1942 after which there were no more floods like that. There, now, it’s unprecedented,” said the city councilor, Sergei Salmin, quoted by Russian media.
Russia, Orsk in the Orenburg region.
Source: TASS pic.twitter.com/sJjuuKy4I1
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These major floods also affect neighboring Kazakhstan, where Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokaïev deplored on Saturday "a natural disaster", "perhaps the greatest, in terms of scale and consequences, of the last 80 years".