MOSCOW: The Russian city of Orenburg, near the Kazakh border, braced on Monday for flooding not seen in decades, as authorities evacuated locals to escape rising rivers in the Urals and western Siberia.
Russia declared a federal emergency on Sunday over floods in the Orenburg region, where the Ural River left much of the city of Orsk covered in water, forcing thousands to vacate their homes.
The river is now reaching critical levels in the regional capital of Orenburg, a city of 550,000 people.
The Kremlin spoke of a dangerous situation on Monday, warning that the floods had possibly not reached their peak. Over the weekend, it said floods were also inevitable in western Siberia’s Tyumen and Kurgan regions.
Thousands of Russians have already been evacuated.
Emergency services said on Monday that more than 10,000 residential buildings had been flooded, mostly in the Volga area, the Urals, and western Siberia. They warned of a surge in air temperature, active snow melting and the overflow of rivers.
Much of the city of Orsk was underwater after torrential rain due to a nearby dam to burst.
Orenburg region officials said that while the Ural River went down by 9 centimeters in Orsk, water levels in the city of Orenburg were rising fast.
In Orenburg, in a day there was a rise by sixteen centimeters to 872 centimeters for the water level, the regional government said. The mayor of Orenburg, Sergei Salmin, urged residents in flood-risk zones to leave immediately.
The water can come at night. Do not risk your lives, he said on a social media post, warning that water levels would surpass critical marks.
Floods in Russia
Salmin said that Orenburg had not witnessed so much water in decades. Salmin said that the highest mark was in 1942. That was 946 centimeters. Since then, there have been no floods. This is unprecedented.
President Vladimir Putin directed a government commission to be established on the floods.
His spokesman said that President Putin did not plan on visiting the flooded zone but that he is being briefed on nature anomalies in real-time.
