Emergency declared in Orenburg region following dam collapse

A federal state of emergency has been declared throughout the Orenburg region in Russia’s Urals as flooding continued to worsen in and around the city of Orsk following the collapse of a dam on Friday, state-affiliated news agency Interfax reported on Sunday.

The number of flooded houses in the region went from 4,400 on Saturday to 6,600 on Sunday as the level of the Ural River continued to rise. Regionwide, some 4,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched Minister of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov to Orsk on Sunday amid the worsening situation, the Kremlin announced. Kurenkov described the situation as “critical”.

Orsk is the Orenburg region’s second city, and has a population of around 200,000 people. The city’s Old Town is now entirely under water and is only accessible by boat, TASS reported.

Telegram channel 112 said that four people were known to have died and a further 66 had been injured in the flooding so far, though the regional authorities denied these figures.

The dam in Orsk was breached late on Friday evening following torrential rain that has affected large parts of the Urals, western Siberia and neighbouring Kazakhstan, where the flooding has been described as the worst natural disaster for 80 years.

The authorities have already opened a criminal case for negligence over the collapse of the dam, which, despite being just a decade old, appears to have been insufficiently backfilled.