At least 100 Russians asked for help from President Vladimir Putin on Monday in a city struck by the worst flooding ever recorded, chanting \u201cshame on you\u201d at local officials who they said had done too little to help their plight. <\/p>\n
Russia declared an emergency in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan after the Ural River, Europe\u2019s third longest river, swelled several meters in hours on Friday, and burst through a dam embankment in the city of Orsk. <\/p>\n
Swathes of Orsk, a city of 230,000 about 1,800 km (1,100 miles) east of Moscow, have been left submerged. <\/p>\n
Late on Monday, Tass news agency quoted the press service of Russia\u2019s Emergencies Ministry as saying flood waters in Orsk had subsided 9 cm (3.5 inches) over a two-hour period. The service warned, however, that \u201cthe situation remains difficult, though water levels have begun to come down a bit in some areas.\u201d <\/p>\n
People had earlier come out in front of the local administration in Orsk, some chanting \u201cshame on you, shame on you\u201d and \u201cPutin help,\u201d according to video footage from the scene published by local media. <\/p>\n
With their properties either destroyed or severely damaged, some are unhappy with the compensation offered by authorities. Some are also unhappy that the dam embankment built in 2010 was unable to defend their city. <\/p>\n
Orenburg Governor Denis Pasler spoke to a resident group in Orsk and said it was easy to apportion blame and turn into some sort of \u201cunruly crowd\u201d but that many residents had tried to help the rescue efforts and been true patriots. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmid the problems, other people, unfortunately, have started to appear,\u201d Pasler said, adding he had not changed his clothes or slept for days. He called for unity. <\/p>\n
Orenburg\u2019s regional prosecutor cautioned citizens against taking part in mass meetings. <\/p>\n
\u201cPlease take note that this mass event has not been coordinated with the authorities in accordance with the procedure established by law,\u201d the prosecutor said. <\/p>\n
After the dam embankment in Orsk was breached, Putin ordered Emergencies Minister Alexander Kurenkov to visit the area and has held several online meetings with governors of the affected regions, including Orenburg, Kurgan and Tyumen. <\/p>\n
Some residents were angered by Kurenkov\u2019s remarks that locals had ignored an order to evacuate a week ago. Russian media said the evacuation only began on April 5. <\/p>\n
Another part of the dam collapsed on Monday, drone images from state news agency Tass showed. The video showed swathes of the city appeared to be a vast lake with houses submerged up to their roofs. <\/p>\n
More than 10,400 homes across Russia have been flooded, with the Urals, Siberia, the Volga and central regions the worst hit. <\/p>\n
The Ural River rises in the Ural Mountains and flows into the Caspian Sea. In Orenburg, a city of more than half a million down river from Orsk, the peak is expected there on Wednesday, Russia\u2019s emergency ministry said. <\/p>\n
Video from Orsk showed one man wading through flood water reaching his neck. He held his keys in his mouth and a black cat above his head. <\/p>\n
An emergency was also declared in Tyumen region, one of Russia\u2019s key oil producing areas of Western Siberia, Governor Alexander Moor said. <\/p>\n
Rising water was forecast in Siberia\u2019s Ishim and Tobol rivers, tributaries of the Irtysh river, which along with its parent, the Ob, forms the world\u2019s seventh longest river system. <\/p>\n
The mayor of Orenburg, Sergei Salmin, said the Ural River was expected to break the previous record of 9.46 meters. It is currently 8.93 meters. <\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely everyone who is in the flood zone needs to leave their homes,\u201d Salmin said. \u201cDo not delay the evacuation! The situation will only get worse in the next two days.\u201d <\/p>\n
Tass said the governor of Kurgan region, Vadim Shumkov, issued a video late on Monday saying that 50 localities in his region, northeast of Orenburg, were likely to be flooded. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo all those who live in all settlements along the floodplain of the Tobol River \u2013 evacuate. Do not wait for the arrival of water. It will come at night and unexpectedly, arriving quickly, in the form of a large wave,\u201d said Shumkov. <\/p>\n
He said the central part of the city of Kurgan, a city of more than 300,000, would be flooded along with other districts. <\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear why this year\u2019s floods were so bad as the snow melt is an annual event in Russia. <\/p>\n
Federal investigators opened a criminal case for negligence and the violation of safety rules over the construction of the embankment dam in Orsk, which prosecutors said had not been maintained properly. <\/p>\n\n
At least 100 Russians asked for help from President Vladimir Putin on Monday in a city struck by the worst flooding ever recorded, chanting \u201cshame on you\u201d at local officials who they said had done too little to help their plight. Russia declared an emergency in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan after the Ural River, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}