Ural River Flood Affects Orenburg Region in Russia

On Sunday, Denis Pasler, the governor of the Orenburg region, reported that 10,168 homes are flooded due to the rise of the Ural River.

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The evacuees from the flood zone, caused by warm weather and massive thawing, amount to 6,127 people, including 1,478 minors.

In Orsk, a city of nearly 200,000 inhabitants, where authorities described the situation yesterday as "critical," more than 6,500 homes were flooded.

Authorities warn that the peak of the flooding has not yet been surpassed and the normalization of the water level in the Ural River is expected only by the end of the month.

According to preliminary estimates, the damages caused by the floods may amount to US$230 million dollars.

The rise of the Ural River caused the rupture of a containment dam and the water flooded the old part of the city, so authorities declared a regional state of emergency on April 4, which was elevated to federal level yesterday.

Orsk is the second city in the Orenburg region, bordering Kazakhstan, a country where floods were described this Saturday as the worst natural disaster in the last 80 years by Kazakh President Kasim-Yomart Tokayev.