In Orsk, a billion-ruble dam collapsed, which was supposed to “forever solve the problem of the threat of flooding”

At least two people have died and hundreds have been evacuated after a dam in Orsk burst, flooding the city center. The city authorities, however, claim that the deaths are not related to the flood. The dam’s breakthrough came as a surprise to local authorities, because its construction was supposed, according to the then head of the city, to forever rid the city of the threat of flooding. Almost a billion rubles were spent on the construction of the structure, and the project engineer even received an award.

Details . “This year’s flood is the first and serious test of the dam’s strength,” wrote the head of Orsk, Vasily Kozupitsa, on April 3, two days before the dam broke. At the same time, he himself was confident that the structure would pass the test: “We remembered the times when Orsk experienced floods without a dam. Then the flood drowned houses <…>. Now there is no such threat,” he wrote in the same message. However, the very next day, Governor Denis Pasler introduced a state of emergency in the Orenburg region due to floods, and a day later the dam broke .

• They decided to build a dam in Orsk in 2010 - it was then that the regional government signed a decree on allocating money for construction. The estimated cost of the facility, according to the document, was almost 932 million rubles. “The dam should protect the city on both sides and forever solve the problem of the threat of flooding during floods,” said Viktor Franz, who was then the head of Orsk.
• Construction began in 2011. In 2012, the facility was included in the federal program “Development of the water management complex of the Russian Federation”, a decree on this was signed by Vladimir Putin, who then held the post of Prime Minister.
• The facility was commissioned in 2014. According to news on the local administration’s website, 910 million rubles were ultimately spent on the project.
• The general contractor for the construction was the Spetsstroy-3 company from Novotroitsk, Orenburg region. The dam project was developed by the Orsk company Yuzhuralfundamentproekt (closed in 2019). The chief engineer of the project was Lyubov Baeva; after the dam was put into operation, she even received the municipal award “For Conscientious Service”, II degree.
• In December 2023, the city administration entered into a contract with the municipal enterprise Spetsavtotekhupravleniye for the operation of the dam until the end of 2024. The contract amount is 1.6 million rubles, for this money, according to the terms of reference, the organization must be responsible for the maintenance of the dam. The application of this enterprise was the only one when choosing a supplier, so the contract price was the maximum.
• Spetsstroy-3 did not answer the Agency’s call. We also reached out to Baeva for comment on her Facebook page, but had not received a response by the time the note was published.
• The Investigative Committee on Saturday opened a criminal case under articles of negligence and violation of safety rules during construction due to a dam break.

Context . The Ministry of Emergency Situations reported the dam break on Friday evening. By morning, more than 700 people had been evacuated from the Old Town microdistrict, which, according to authorities, would be flooded . The mayor of Orsk said that the water will leave the city no earlier than in one and a half to two weeks. TASS, citing operational services , reported the complete destruction of the Orsk dam, but the regional government denies this.

• The flood that led to the dam's breakthrough occurred due to a record release of water from the Iriklinsky reservoir. As Rosvodresursy explained , an increase in discharges is needed to “cut off the peak of the flood,” since there is water in the reservoir due to sudden warming, melting snow and intense precipitation.
• The bodies of two people were found in the flood zone, RBC reported . However, the regional government told the publication that “there was no water either on the plot of land or in the house to somehow connect this with flooding.” At the same time, TASS, citing emergency services, reported three bodies were found.
• In total, more than 2.5 thousand houses were flooded in the Orenburg region, more than 2.5 thousand people were evacuated. There were problems with electricity in 12 settlements.

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