The Russian President Vladimir Putin called on residents of flood-hit regions to follow calls to evacuate. The populations concerned are reluctant to leave their homes for fear of “looting.’ More than 3,000 houses in 25 localities were flooded in his region, washed by the Tobol River.
For the moment, some 435 people have been evacuated in the neighboring region of Tyumen. But local authorities expect the situation to worsen in the coming days. The floods could exceed by more than 2 meters a record reached in 2017, declared the regional governor, Alexandre Moor. In Orenburg, at the heart of the floods in recent days, the level of the Ural River began to fall, but still remained high, 1099 cm, said the Orenberg town hall. The flooding is affecting the Siberian regions of Kurgan and Tyumen, as well as the nearby city of Vladivostok, which has a population of around 1.5 million.