Russia Evacuates 19,000 from Flooded Far East
Floods in the Russian Far East broke historic records Monday as authorities evacuated more than 19,000 people from affected areas and warned of a further rise in water levels.
The Amur river rose to record levels in the city of Khabarovsk and rain continued to batter the region as authorities sent out bottled water and administered shelters for displaced residents.
Russia's state weather service Rosgidromet forecast a further rise in water levels because of the continuing rains in the Khabarovsk region.
The maximum rise is expected later this week, the head of the weather service, Alexander Frolov, said on television. There have been no reports of fatalities.
The emergency ministry said more than 19,000 people have been evacuated from the regions of Amur, Khabarovsk, and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a region created by Stalin for Soviet Jews whose Jewish population has now declined drastically.
Television footage showed trucks dumping sand in the streets to prevent flooding, and people, including army troops dispatched to the area, erecting sandbag barriers.
"Our dacha is basically swimming," one woman in a village near Khabarovsk told the NTV channel, using a Russian word for a vacation home. "People's garages are submerged to the roof. All in all, everything is terrible."
"How are we going to survive the winter?" another local said standing in her damaged house. "We don't even know when the water will subside."
The governor of Amur region, Oleg Kozhemyako, said that more than 43 percent of coal stockpiled for winter needs has been lost in the flood, according to news agencies.
"There is very little time," he said. "Five hundred kilometers of roads have been destroyed, bridges are destroyed, 38 villages have been cut off."
Rescue workers even reported airlifting two bears -- kept in a cage at a tourist resort -- from a flood zone.
The Amur river is expected to rise in Khabarovsk, a city of 600,000 people, to nearly eight meters (26 feet), the regional branch of the emergency ministry said.
It warned of imminent flooding of key streets and energy infrastructure.
Speaking in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, a small region bordering China, Russia's Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova also called on officials to prevent the outbreak of infections after groundwater became polluted.
Water also damaged the region's agriculture, with 57 percent of all crops hit by the flood in the Amur region, according to the agriculture ministry.
Massive rains since the end of July saw the Amur river -- which borders northeastern China -- burst its banks, as well as one of its tributaries, the Zeya.
Source: Agence France Presse
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