Criminal case opened against Irkutsk region bureaucrats following flooding that displaced tens of thousands and killed 25

Russia’s Investigative Committee has initiated a criminal negligence investigation against government officials in the Irkutsk region. By early July, flooding in the Siberian federal subject had displaced 38,000 people from their homes, killed 25, and left 7 missing.

The case became public after Alexander Bastrykin, the chair of the Investigative Committee, decided to transfer it to the Committee’s federal center during a conference session in Bratsk.

Physicists and meteorologists from Irkutsk State University found during the flood that “observed global and regional climate change” was at the root of excessive rainfall that caused rivers in the Irkutsk region to overflow their banks.