MOSCOW (AP) – Rising Ural River waters caused a dam to burst in a city near the Russia-Kazakhstan border, forcing about 2,000 people to evacuate, local authorities said.
A dam collapsed on Friday night in the city of Orsk in Orenburg region, less than 20 kilometers north of the border, said Orsk Mayor Vasily Kozpitsa. By Saturday morning, more than 2,400 homes in the city of 200,000 were flooded and power was out in several areas. Evacuation efforts are still continuing.
Orsk, Russia – April 5: (—-Editorial use only – Credit required – “Situation/handout of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations” – No marketing, no advertising campaigns – Distributed as a service to clients—-) Due to floods Residents are being evacuated en masse after a dam burst in the Russian city of Orsk on April 5, 2024. A statement from the city of Orsk said that as a result of a major dam failure in the city of Orsk, large areas of the region were flooded. The Ural River flows through the city. (Photo courtesy of Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Footage from Orsk showed streets dotted with one-story houses covered in water.
Local authorities say the dam can withstand water levels of up to 5.5 meters (about 18 feet). On Saturday morning, the water level reached about 9.3 meters (30.51 feet) and was rising, Kozpitza said.
Authorities said flooding also affected other parts of the region, in the Ural Mountains region, and around 4,000 people were evacuated. It is not clear whether that number includes the 2,000 people already evacuated in Orsk.
Orsk, Russia – April 6: (—-Editorial use only – Credit required – “Situation/handout of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia” – No marketing, no advertising campaigns – Distributed as a service to clients—-) From the video show Screen capture captured A dam burst in the Russian city of Orsk on April 6, 2024, and residents are evacuated en masse due to flooding. According to a statement from the city of Orsk, large areas of the region were flooded as a result of a large-scale levee failure. A dam on the Ural River that flows through the city. More than 700 people were evacuated from flooded areas. (Photo courtesy of Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations/Anadolu, via Getty Images)
(Photo courtesy of Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations/Anadolu, via Getty Images)
The Ural River is approximately 2,428 kilometers (1,509 miles) long and flows from the southern Ural Mountains through Russia and Kazakhstan to the northern tip of the Caspian Sea.
Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal investigation into possible violations of construction safety regulations and negligence that may have caused the dam to collapse.
