Kazakhstan, Russia grapple with floods along Siberian rivers

[April 16, 2024]  By Tamara Vaal

PETROPAVLOVSK, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - More than 2,000 houses were flooded in Kazakhstan's northernmost region as of Tuesday, authorities said, while across the border in Russia, Kurgan and Tyumen provinces were also evacuating thousands of people due to the deluge.

Water levels in rivers in swathes of Russia's Ural and southwestern Siberian regions, as well as adjacent areas of Kazakhstan, were still rising rapidly, officials said. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev arrived in Petropavlovsk on Tuesday, where local governor Gauez Nurmukhambetov told him 10,345 people in the region have been evacuated as parts of the city remained under water, Tokayev's office said.

"We are going through tough times. This is a disaster of a national scale," Tokayev said at a meeting with residents. "I think the next 10 days will be critical, but we are

already taking measures to rebuild the country and deal with the aftermath of this disaster."

More than 300 houses and nearly 700 residential plots have been flooded in Russia's Kurgan region straddling the Tobol River near the border with Kazakhstan, Russia's emergency ministry said on Tuesday.

"The water level in the Tobol River is rising rapidly," the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

In the city of Kurgan, the region's administrative centre, power was cut off, affecting about 1,500 residents, local officials said late on Monday.

Vadim Shumkov, governor of the Kurgan region, had said that he expected a "very difficult" situation, with the waters in the Tobol rising possibly up to 11 meters (36 ft), or nearly double the bursting level at some places.

Residents of Ishim, a town of 65,000 people in the Tyumen region in southwestern Siberia, bordering Kazakhstan, were asked early on Tuesday to urgently evacuate because of a critical rise in the water level in the Ishim River that flows through the town.

A view from a helicopter shows a flooded area in the Kurgan Region, Russia, in this still image taken from video released April 9, 2024. Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

Regional governor Alexander Moor also urged residents of the Kazanky and Ishim districts to evacuate. "The probability is growing of dams bursting, or water pouring over them. Therefore we are beginning an urgent evacuation of the population," he said in a video address posted online. "You all know about the danger. Gather your valuables. Immediately drive to safe places, to relatives or evacuation points where we will supply you with all essentials."

Russia's southern Ural region, southwest Siberia and northern Kazakhstan have been grappling with the worst flooding in living memory after large snow falls melted swiftly amid heavy rain over land already waterlogged before winter.

By late Monday, melt waters that swelled the tributaries of the world's seventh longest river system, had forcing more than 125,000 people to flee their homes.

In the West Kazakhstan region crossed by the Ural river, authorities said they expected the flood wave to hit the province on April 20 and were pre-emptively evacuating some settlements on the river.

From West Kazakhstan, the Ural continues to the Atyrau region, Kazakhstan's oil industry hub, where it flows into the Caspian Sea.

(Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Lisbon and Mark Trevelyan in London, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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