Floods grip Kazakhstan and Russia as tributaries of Ob rise (updated)

Doosan

15/04/2024 07:13

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      More than 108,000 evacuated in Kazakhstan floods 
    

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      Russia tells residents to leave parts of Kurgan 
    

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      Tobol River rising fast 
    

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      Tomsk region also facing rising waters 
    

  
 (Changes dateline to PETROPAVLOVSK, Kazakhstan, adds accounts
from Reuters journalist in Kazakhstan)
    By Tamara Vaal
       PETROPAVLOVSK, Kazakhstan, April 15 (Reuters) - Swathes
of northern Kazakhstan and Russia's Urals region were flooded on
Monday as melt waters swelled the tributaries of the world's
seventh longest river system, forcing more than 125,000 people
to flee their homes.
    Russia's southern Ural region and northern Kazakhstan have
been grappling with the worst flooding in living memory after
very large snow falls melted swiftly amid heavy rain over land
already waterlogged before winter.
    That has swelled the tributaries of the Ob, which rises in
the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia and empties into the
Arctic Ocean, beyond bursting point, leaving some cities in
Russia and Kazakhstan under water.
    Several districts of the northern Kazakh city of
Petropavlovsk were completely flooded, said a Reuters journalist
in the city, which sits on the Ishim River, a tributary of the
Irtysh, the chief tributary of the Ob.
    Almost 1,000 houses have been flooded in the North
Kazakhstan region of which Petropavlovsk is the centre, and over
5,000 people have been evacuated, local officials said. There
have been interruptions in power and water supply in the city.
    People were queuing up in front of water trucks moving from
one neighbourhood to another in the city. The main reservoir
supplying the city with drinkable water has been flooded.
    Just a few hundred kilometres over the border, Russia's
Kurgan, a region of 800,000 people at the confluence of the Ural
mountains and Siberia, was grappling with flooding and rising
water levels in the Tobol River, another tributary of the
Irtysh.
    Water levels rose to 6.31 metres (over 20 ft) in the main
city, Kurgan. Governor Vadim Shumkov said there was almost a
"sea" of water approaching. 
    "The city of Kurgan itself will be next," Shumkov said. "The
flow of the Tobol is accelerating. The water level in it is
constantly rising."
    "Fellow countrymen, leave the flooded areas immediately."
    Shumkov warned that flooding would begin shortly on the
right bank of the Tobol, which slices the region south to north,
and the low part of its left bank.
    Floods were also inundating homes in the Tomsk region in the
southwestern part of Siberia, regional officials said on
Telegram.
    Almost 140 houses near the city of Tomsk, which is the
regional administrative centre, were under water on Monday and
84 people were evacuated.
    The Ob-Irtysh river system is the world's seventh largest,
after the Yellow River, the Yenisei, the Mississippi, the
Yangtze, the Amazon and the Nile. 

 (Writing by Lidia Kelly in Lisbon, Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty and
Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and
Michael Perry)
 ((lidia.kelly@thomsonreuters.com;))