Dam break in Russia: flood continues in the Urals, the situation is “critical” in Orsk

Two days after the flood began, concern remains in the Urals. Russian Emergency Situations Minister Alexander Kurenkov on Sunday called the situation “critical” in Orsk in the Orenburg region after a dam broke on Friday, leading to the evacuation of several thousand residents of the region at the height of melting ice. . Local authorities also admitted that the “rate” of water flow had not slowed down, although a state of emergency had been declared at the regional level, Russian news agency TASS reported.

“There is a critical situation in the city of Orsk,” he said from this industrial city of more than 200,000 people near the border with Kazakhstan. Images broadcast by his services on Telegram showed him surrounded by rescuers floating through the water in a small boat, reaching the windows of some homes and several businesses. In Orsk, more than 4,500 houses are flooded and more than 4,000 people have already been evacuated to temporary accommodation centers, he said. “The situation is developing, it is complicated,” his deputy minister Ilya Denisov admitted on Sunday, as quoted by the RIA Novosti agency.

On Friday, a dam failure in Orsk, very close to the border with Kazakhstan, caused rising water levels, compounded by significant disturbances and melting ice, a common occurrence at this time of year in many regions of Russia. “The flooding of these territories is associated with the impact of melt water, a rise in the level of the Ural River, (…), as well as a dam failure in Orsk, where the situation is most difficult,” the regional authorities explained in their press release.

“The most pessimistic scenario”

The severity is such that more than 700 rescuers were sent to Orsk “24 hours a day,” the Ministry of Emergency Situations reported in its Telegram channel. “Many people still don’t want to evacuate. “They think the height of the floors will protect them,” but they are “putting themselves in danger,” he warned, sharing a video of rescuers diving into city streets in thigh-deep water to help evacuated residents on small inflatable canals.

More broadly, regional authorities said schools would teach “remotely” due to the floods, while the “most pessimistic scenario” was confirmed on the ground, TASS reported. “Floods in the Orenburg region have not slowed down yet,” the service of the region’s governor, Denis Pasler, said in a press release.

The town hall of Orenburg, a large city to the west, also sounded the alarm: “The situation there is getting worse,” she wrote on Telegram on Sunday, adding that the level of the Ural River had risen by 28 cm the day before. He warned the population that in the event of a power outage in homes Residents must leave their homes “immediately”, with 400 homes already flooded, according to regional authorities.

Authorities classified the disaster as a “federal emergency,” which freed up special funds. Reinforcements also arrived at the scene to help the already working specialists. According to the Ministry of Construction’s first estimate, the cost of damage to houses could amount to “more than 21 billion rubles,” or about 2.1 billion euros at current exchange rates.

More than 60 settlements are still under threat

The bodies of two people were found in the flood zone, but authorities assured that their deaths were not related to the disaster, the TASS agency reports. On Saturday evening it was reported that about 4,500 people, including more than 1,100 children, had been evacuated to temporary accommodation centers.

The situation on the ground is still far from improving: “heavy rains” are expected in the region in the coming hours, which could “complicate” the task of rescuers even more, regional authorities have already warned. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, in total, more than 60 settlements are still at risk of flooding.

The floods also affected Kazakhstan, a country bordering Russia, where Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev deplored on Saturday a “natural disaster” “perhaps the largest in scale and impact in the last 80 years.”