ORENBURG, Russia, April  13, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russian emergency services on
Saturday said they had evacuated thousands of people from the southern regions
bordering Kazakhstan as flood water continued to rise.

Fast-rising temperatures have melted snow and ice, and along with heavy
rain have caused a number of major rivers that pass through Russia and
Kazakhstan to overflow this month.

In the city of Orenburg, one of the worst affected areas in Russia, the
Ural River has breached its banks, submerging streets and residential areas and
water levels continued to rise Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon, the river level reached almost 12 metres (39 feet),
more than 2.5 metres above the level considered critical.

Regional governor Denis Pasler said in a press release Sunday evening that
"as of today the situation remains complex. In Orenburg the flood is at the
maximum peak."

The Ural River flows through the centre of Orenburg.

Flood water covered the embankment promenade and swirled around houses and
an high-rise apartment blocks built close to the river, an AFP journalist saw.

More than 13,000 people have been evacuated from Orenburg and the
surrounding region and more than 11,000 homes have been flooded, according to
the emergency situations ministry.

Eldar Rakhmetov, a ministry official involved in the evacuation, told AFP
that in Orenburg "there has been an increase in the number of homes flooded
since this morning and more areas are being evacuated."

Local residents were using rubber dinghies to try to retrieve pets and
belongings from flooded houses and some areas were left without power.

Valery, 64, a local factory worker, was one of those evacuated Saturday by
a police truck.

"The most important thing is that (my house) does not get looted. That is
what I am worried about. Other than that, it is fine! We will survive," he said.

- 'Evacuate urgently!' -

The emergency situations ministry said that in the Kurgan region further
east, the level of the Tobol River was continuing to rise steeply and more than
6,000 people had been evacuated.

The governor, Vadim Shumkov, urged residents likely to be affected to leave
now.

"The water is treacherous and when there is so much of it, it rises
unpredictably," Shumkov warned on Telegram, urging people to leave with
valuables and pets.

"My fellow Kurgan people, you must evacuate urgently. Urgently!" the
governor posted later.

In Kazakhstan, which shares around 7,500 kilometres (4,660 miles) of border
with Russia, flooding has reached the outskirts of the northern city of
Petropavlovsk, which has around 220,000 residents, causing problems with power
and mains water supply.

More than 102,000 people, many of them children, have been evacuated in the
vast Central Asian country, where almost 4,000 homes are still flooded,
according to the emergency situations ministry.

Climate change due to global warming is associated with more frequent
extreme weather events such as floods.

In the Russian city of Orsk in the Orenburg region, where a dam protecting
the city from flooding broke this month, residents held rare protests this week
over the local authorities' handling of the crisis.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on the floods on Thursday
but has not visited the affected regions.