Torrential rains dropped nearly a foot of water on a Black Sea region in southern Russia overnight, setting off intense flooding that killed at least 78 people and forced some in the largely rural area to take refuge in trees and on roofs, officials said Saturday.
Muddy water coursed
through streets and homes in the Krasnodar region, in some cases high
enough to flow over the hoods of cars. In some areas, people waded
through waist-high water or maneuvered the streets in boats. About 5,000
residences were flooded, the Krasnodar governor was quoted as telling
the Interfax news agency.
Igor Zhelyabin, a spokesman for the
Krasnodar’s Emergencies Ministry, said 67 of the deaths were in the area
of the hard-hit town of Krimsk, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles)
south of Moscow. Many people were asleep when the flooding hit, and
scrambled to safety, the ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
State
news agency RIA Novosti said five people died of electrical shock in the
Black Sea coastal city of Gelendzhik after a transformer fell into the
water.
As of 10 a.m. Saturday, more than 28 centimeters (11
inches) of rain had fallen in Gelendzhik since the previous evening, the
state meteorological service said.
Gelendzhik is on the Black Sea
coast, and along with the area around it, is a popular summer vacation
spot, including many children’s camps. Vice-premier Olga Golodets told
RIA Novosti that some 7,100 children were at holiday camps in the area,
and that with 459 children had to be evacuated.
The area also
includes Novorossiisk, a major Black Sea port. The Transneft oil company
said Saturday it has suspended loading oil onto tankers at the port
because of the severe weather.
