The Russian city of Orenburg, near the Kazakh border, braced on Monday for flooding not seen in decades, as
officials evacuated locals to escape rising rivers in the Urals and western Siberia.
Moscow declared a federal emergency on Sunday over floods in the Orenburg region, where the Ural river left much of the city of Orsk covered in water, forcing thousands to leave their homes, reports AFP.
The river is now reaching dangerous levels in the regional capital of Orenburg, a city of 550,000 people.
The Kremlin has also warned of “inevitable” floods in western Siberia’s Kurgan and Tyumen regions.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from flooded areas. The Kremlin said on Monday that over 10,000 residential buildings had been flooded, mostly in the Urals, Volga area and western Siberia. Emergency services warned of a “rise in air temperature, active snow melting and the overflow of rivers”.