In the flood-hit southern Russian Kurgan Oblast, water rose so quickly on Friday evening that the village of Kaminskoye on the Tobol River had to be evacuated. Kurgan Governor Vadim Shumkov said on Telegram in the morning that the water level had risen by 1.4 meters. The Tobol, on which Kaminskoye is located, also flows through the city of Kurgan, where about 300,000 people live.
Flooding could also occur there in the coming days, Shumkov said. “We can only hope that the floodplains expand widely and that the soil absorbs as much water as possible along the way.” A dam is being strengthened in Kurgan.
Hundreds of houses flooded in Orenburg
In the city of Orenburg, which is further west on the Urals, hundreds of houses were flooded in one night. The peak is likely to be reached this Friday, Deputy Mayor Alexei Kudinov told state news agency RIA Novosti. The flooding is expected to subside within two days. According to authorities, the water level in Orenburg stood at 11.29 meters in the morning. The day before the level was 10.87 meters.
Orenburg is located about 1,200 kilometers southeast of Moscow in the oblast of the same name. Large parts of the city, which has a population of 550,000, are already under water. Many people had to leave their homes and give up their belongings.
100,000 people brought to safety by floods
Russia’s Kurgan and Orenburg Oblasts border Kazakhstan, where serious flooding has also occurred. According to the Kazakh Emergency Situations Ministry, almost 100,000 people have been brought to safety by the floods. The state of emergency remains in effect in eight of Kazakhstan’s seventeen provinces.
This year, several factors came together to cause the unusually severe flooding. According to Russian civil defense experts, the ground was already soaked before winter. It froze under very heavy snow, and when temperatures rose rapidly in the spring, the mixture melted – which was accompanied by heavy rainfall.
Source: Krone
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