Photo: Amid global extreme weather events, Russia's Irkutsk region faces deadly floods
Roscosmos Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, has published satellite images of areas in the Irkutsk region where a state of emergency has been declared due to mass flooding. This photograph was taken on June 29, 2019. Since June 25, more than 6,600 homes have flooded in the region, displacing more than 32,000 people. As of July 2, 18 deaths have been reported in the flooding, and more than 200 people have been hospitalized due primarily to hypothermia. Experts have connected the root causes of concurrent extreme weather events such as similar flooding in the Midwestern United States and a record-breaking heat wave in Europe to the ongoing climate crisis. Russia’s own Environmental Ministry warned last year that disastrous environmental events are already taking lives in Russia at an escalating rate. Nonetheless, Russia currently occupies fourth place in global rankings of carbon dioxide emissions, and its government has left that position unchanged while repressing climate activism.
