ASTANA: Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from ten northern regions in Kazakhstan because of floods in the area, the authorities said. The severe seasonal floods have been caused by melting snow in the region.
Across the border in Russia, an oil refinery in the city of Orsk, 1,800km southeast of the capital city of Moscow, has stopped operations because of the floods.
The Kremlin has warned that water levels in some areas are rising faster than at any time in the last one hundred years, according to BBC.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had ordered the governors of the Siberian regions of Kurgan and Tyumen, further to the east, to prepare for the expected sharp rise in water levels and floods.
Russian authorities said on Saturday that they had evacuated about 4,500 people in the Orenburg region in the area around Orsk.
During a visit to Orsk on Sunday, Russian Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov warned that a serious critical situation had developed after a dam was breached on Friday.
Russia’s weather monitoring agency has warned that water levels on the Ural River in Orenburg will reach critical levels over the coming three days.
Regional authorities said they expected the peak of the flood on Tuesday and for the situation to stabilise only after 20 April.
Flood Situation in Kazakhstan
In Kazakhstan, the emergency ministry said on Sunday that about twelve thousand people were being shifted to temporary shelters.
It said rescuers also managed to move some 60,000 farm animals to safe areas.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Saturday that it was the worst natural disaster in Kazakhstan for eighty years.
In a televised address, Tokayev said the government had ramped up efforts to reduce the impacts of the floods and that all required help would be provided to the people.
