On Tuesday, April 9, flood sirens had blared out in two cities in Russia, warning thousands more people to flee their homes immediately as two major rivers in the country swelled to bursting point. This has undoubtedly been some of the country’s worst flooding in at least 70 years.
The rapidly melting snow across swathes of the Ural Mountains and Siberia has caused some of the biggest rivers to surge across the wilds of Russia, with at least 10,500 homes recorded to be flooded so far, and leaving many thousands more at risk.
The Ural River is Europe’s third largest body of water and it flows into the Caspian Sea. The river had unfortunately bursted through an embankment dam on Friday, flooding the city of Orsk just south of the Ural Mountains.
The water levels in Orenburg, a city of around 550,000 people and located downstream are now reportedly rising and sirens in Kurgan, a city on the Tobol river, a tributary of the Irtysh, have issued warnings for people to evacuate immediately.
Governor Vadim Shumkov has urged residents to take theses warnings seriously.
The peak is expected in Orenburg on Wednesday.
With a great number of water flowing into rivers, emergencies havr been announced in Orenburg, Kurgan and Tyumen, a key oil producing region of Western Siberia – the largest hydrocarbon basin in the world.
Meanwhile, Alexander Kurenkov, the head of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations had flown to Orenburg region on Tuesday to monitor the situation after being tasked to do so by Putin. He will also visit the Kurgan and Tyumen regions in the Urals.
“Preventive measures are already being taken there and rescue teams have been strengthened. The forces and means of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations have been put on high alert too,” the ministry had said.
Rising water was also peedicted in Siberia’s Ishim river (a tributary of the Irtysh river) which along with its parent, the Ob, forms the world’s seventh longest river system.
As at this time, It is not immediately clear why this year’s floods have been so bad as the snow melt is an annual event in Russia.
Scientists have attributed this to climate change which has made flooding a more frequent crisis worldwide.
