A young man
surveys the damage in a room where flood waters poured in and reached
more than halfway up the wall. Cleanup is beginning after deadly floods
swept through the Black Sea region of southern Russia, and President
Vladimir Putin ordered investigators to find out if enough was done to
prevent 144 people being killed in the floods.
A soldier digs a grave for those
who died during floods in Krymsk, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles)
south of Moscow, on Tuesday, July 10. Intense flooding in the Black Sea
region of southern Russia killed nearly 170 people after torrential
rains dropped nearly a foot of water, forcing many to scramble out of
their beds for refuge in trees and on roofs, officials said Saturday.
Authorities failed to properly warn residents in the Black
Sea region of floods that killed at least 171 people and left others
scrambling for safety, Russia's emergencies minister acknowledged
Monday, adding to public outrage fueled by widespread mistrust of the
government.
Monday has been declared a national day of mourning in Russia.
Families of the flood victims were beginning to bury the dead in the
hard-hit town of Krymsk, where torrential rain and flooding turned
streets into swirling muddy rivers, inundated thousands of homes and
forced people to flee from their beds in the middle of the night. Nearly
19,000 people have lost all their belongings.
The Emergencies Ministry said it sent warnings out by text message,
but some local residents said they never received the alerts. Ministry
head Vladimir Puchkov acknowledged under pressure that they were
insufficient to reach everyone on time.
"A system to warn the residents was set up," Puchkov said at a
government meeting where he was grilled by the deputy prime minister
about the early Saturday flood. "But, unfortunately, not everyone was
warned early enough."
The chief investigation body, the Investigative Committee, also said it has evidence the warning was not enough.
Russia has seen a series of natural and man-made disasters in recent
years, many of them blamed on aging infrastructure or lax safety rules.
The poor handling of the disaster has highlighted Russians' distrust of
their government and President Vladimir Putin has tried to move quickly
to stanch the anger.
The Komsomoskaya Pravda daily demanded in its headline: "Why so many
deaths?!" while the Moskovsky Komsomolets bluntly described the flood as
"disaster that could have been forecast and prevented" on its front
page.
Putin, who was criticized in past years for a delayed or seemingly
indifferent response to disasters, flew to the Krasnodar region in
southern Russia over the weekend, committed to showing he was taking
charge of the situation. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether
the population had been properly protected from "natural and
technological catastrophes."
Putin on Monday demanded that investigators and the Emergencies
Situations Ministry give him a full report by the weekend on the causes
of the flood and how its aftermath was handled.
Torrential rains in the area dropped up to a foot of water in less
than 24 hours, which the state meteorological service said was five
times the monthly average.
The water rushed into Krymsk with such speed and volume that
residents said they suspected that water had been intentionally released
from a reservoir in the mountains above, a claim government officials
deny.
Attempting to convince skeptics, authorities flew several area
residents over the reservoir in a helicopter and they said they were
convinced it could not have been the source of the flooding. It was not
immediately clear who the residents were or how they were chosen.
At a meeting with Krymsk residents on Sunday, regional Gov. Alexander
Tkachev defended his seeming inaction, saying that the first warnings
of possible flooding came at 10 p.m. Friday, and the heaviest rainfall
was from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. Saturday.
"Do you think my dears ... that we could have warned each of you?
With what forces? That's one. And two, would you have gotten up and left
your homes," Tkachev said during the confrontation, which was shown on
television.
Prominent columnist Oleg Kashin, who is now in Krymsk, said in a
piece on the leading radio station Kommersant FM that none of the
residents he has spoken to believes it was only the weather that caused
the disaster.
"It's not that the government's version of the events differs from
that of the victims, but the thing is that it's normal in Russia to
distrust authorities in everything — be it a natural disaster, elections
or soccer," Kashin said. "I'm sure that Krymsk will get repaired,
compensations will be paid, and the dead will be buried. But you have to
agree that this will not make this crisis of confidence go away."
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