Authorities in the Russian city of Orenburg, close to the border with Kazakhstan, announced a mass evacuation from there after the water level in the Ural River rose further, threatening the region with more floods.
Moscow – On Friday, authorities in the Russian city of Orenburg, near the border with Kazakhstan, announced a mass evacuation from there after the water level in the Ural River rose further, threatening the region with more floods.
Orenburg Mayor Sergei Salmin called on residents in a statement via the Telegram messaging app in the morning to “urgently evacuate” as sirens sounded in the city.
“This is not a drill,” Salmin wrote. “The flood situation in Orenburg is very serious. Over the past 10 hours, the water level in the Ural River has risen by 40 cm and now reaches 11.43 (meters). These values are dangerous.”
Pictures from the city showed entire neighborhoods submerged in water.
The flood struck the area located about 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital, Moscow, on the border with Kazakhstan, after a dam on the Ural River collapsed last week in the city of Orsk under high water pressure. The authorities classified the situation in the region as an emergency of federal importance.
More than 11,700 homes remained submerged in the region on Friday, down from about 12,000 homes reported the day before, as water levels receded in Orsk, state news agency TASS reported. About 10,700 people have already been evacuated from flooded areas, according to TASS.
The Ural River runs about 2,428 kilometers (1,509 mi) from the southern section of the Ural Mountains, through Russia and Kazakhstan, before flowing into the northern end of the Caspian Sea.
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