KHABAROVSK, September 11 (RIA Novosti) – Timely disaster response by Russian Far Eastern authorities saved hundreds of homes during the ongoing floods, a Russian deputy premier said on Wednesday during his trip to an affected region.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich paid a working visit to the Khabarovsk Territory, where more than 2,700 houses in 74 cities, towns and villages have been inundated. He made a helicopter trip to inspect flooded areas near the region’s capital and largest city, Khabarovsk.
“Khabarovsk Territory authorities demonstrated that they knew what they were doing and many problems have been eliminated thanks to their prompt actions,” he said. “Clearly, a disaster of such scope can never be forecasted, but it is evident that they did everything they could.”
Waters of the Amur River near Khabarovsk continue to decline having dropped by 12 centimeters (5 inches), to 7.41 meters (24.3 feet) over the past 24 hours.
However, the flooding still threatens the region’s second largest city, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where waters have climbed to 9.02 meters (29.6 feet) as of Wednesday morning, gaining eight centimeters (3.1 inch) over the past 24 hours, local emergencies services reported.
Almost 130 houses were inundated in the city in the past 24 hours, the city administration said on Wednesday morning.
“By September 11, a total of 810 houses with 9,400 inhabitants are within the flooded area. 821 people have been evacuated [in the past 24 hours], 821 of them have been taken to temporary shelters,” the city administration said in a statement.
The current flooding in Russia’s Far East, which according to Russian meteorologists is the worst in the region in 120 years, has also affected the Amur and Magadan regions, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and the Primorye Territory, as well as in the Siberian republic of Yakutia.