Some 12,000 homes have been flooded in a Russian region bordering Kazakhstan, authorities said Thursday, as water levels in the Ural River continue to rise and threaten further deluge.
In the Orenburg region, about 1,245 miles southeast of the capital Moscow, thousands of people were evacuated by flooding last week after a river dam burst under the pressure of rising water. Local authorities declared a state of emergency in the area.
A total of 11,972 homes and 16 state health facilities were flooded, Orenburg Governor Denis Passler reported in a video conference with President Vladimir Putin. Additionally, his 3,600 homes, home to around 20,000 people, are at imminent risk of flooding as water levels continue to rise.
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The situation was most dire in the region’s administrative capital, the city of Orenburg, where the Ural River’s water level had reached a historic peak of about 36 feet, Passler said.
He added that a total of 7,800 people have so far been evacuated from flooded areas. The total damage caused by the floods is estimated at more than 40 billion rubles ($428 million).
Local residents monitor flooded areas in Orenburg, Russia, Thursday, April 11, 2024. As water levels in the Ural River rise, Russian authorities are scrambling to help homeowners displaced by floods. State news agency Ria Novosti reported on Wednesday that the river level in the city of Orenburg had exceeded 10 meters (33 feet), citing the regional governor. (AP photo)
Further east, along the border with Kazakhstan, authorities in the Kurgan and Tyumen regions are also preparing for possible flooding as local river levels rise.
Flooding has also occurred in Kazakhstan, with authorities declaring a state of emergency in 10 of the country’s 17 regions, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency. As of Thursday, a state of emergency was still in place in eight regions, TASS reported. More than 98,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster area since March.
Footage from flooded areas in Kazakhstan showed water flowing down roads, vast fields covered in water and dozens of homes partially submerged. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called the floods a “natural disaster, something like this has not been seen for many years.”
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“In terms of scale and impact, this is probably the biggest disaster in over 80 years,” he said last week.
