Russia and Kazakhstan are experiencing major flooding. Authorities in both countries said Sunday that water continues to rise in some of the affected regions, where the peak is expected in the coming days.
In Petropavlovsk, capital of the North Kazakhstan region with 220,000 inhabitants, the peak should arrive in the next 24 hours, according to the official Kazinform news agency. In places, only the roofs of houses emerge from brown water which has invaded entire neighborhoods. To reach their homes, some travel by inflatable boat. More than a thousand houses have already been flooded, according to Kazinform.
Climate change singled out
Since the start of the floods, more than 107,000 people have already been evacuated in Kazakhstan, some of whom were then able to return home, according to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of this huge Central Asian country. Russia, on the other hand, has not communicated a national figure, but at least 23,000 people have left their homes in the regions of Orenburg and Kurgan, in the south of the country, according to regional authorities.
Major floods are caused by heavy rains associated with rising temperatures, increased snowmelt and the breakup of winter ice covering rivers. While the degree of influence of climate change remains to be determined, it is already established by scientists that global warming favors extreme weather events such as heavy precipitation causing flooding.
In the Urals, the governor of Russia’s Kurgan region, Vadim Shumkov, urged residents on Sunday to evacuate their homes before nightfall. “A very difficult situation with rising water levels is expected overnight,” he said, warning residents that things could change “radically in a negative direction,” without them having “time to react.” “.
OUR FILE ON GLOBAL WARMING
In Kurgan, the peak of the flood is expected on Sunday or Monday, according to regional authorities. Around 18,000 people could be in the emergency zone, the Ria Novosti agency underlined, based on official forecasts. In Orenburg, one of the most affected cities in the region of the same name, the waters of the Ural River partially submerged some roads and flowed into residential areas, transforming neighborhoods into ponds. There too, evacuations were ordered.
In the Tyumen region of western Siberia, residents of two additional villages began to be temporarily relocated due to the flooding of the Ishim River. In this region, the flood peak should only be reached around April 23 to 25, according to the authorities.