Authorities are plugging away with evacuation efforts in southwest Russia on Monday after rising water levels burst a dam and triggered extensive flooding in the city of Orsk over the weekend.
Videos and photographs published on social media show water levels reaching more than half the height of front doors and local authorities evacuating animals on boats sailing through main streets in Orsk.
City officials said on Monday that another village close to the city would be evacuated.
On Friday, melting ice pushed up water levels in the Ural River, which then burst through a dam in the city of Orsk in the southwestern Russian region of Orenburg. By Saturday, authorities had evacuated around 2,000 people from Orsk.
"The scale of damage caused by the disaster is significant," Orenburg regional governor, Denis Pasler, said in a post to Telegram on Saturday. "The situation remains difficult in our region and other regions of Russia."
Several other Russian regions and parts of neighboring Kazakhstan have been caught by flooding in recent days.
Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Monday that more than 10,000 residential buildings were flooded in a string of regions, nearly 4,000 of which were in the Orenburg region. More than 6,000 people were evacuated across Orenburg, and over 1,200 people remain in temporary accommodation, according to federal officials.
Another river in Orsk has burst its bank, local authorities said.
Orsk city mayor, Vasily Kozupitsa, said on Monday that residents have been evacuated overnight, with 16 temporary accommodations centers set up and ready to house more than 12,000 people.
A total of 25 schools and kindergartens, as well as nine medical facilities, were in the flood zone, Kozupitsa said in a post to the Telegram messaging app. Schools have been closed, with pupils to learn remotely, state news agency Tass reported.
Operations at an oil refinery in Orsk have been suspended, authorities said.
"We are identifying citizens who still remain in their homes in flooded areas," the mayor added.
Officials are strengthening the dam that shields settlements on the border with Kazakhstan from rising water levels, the government said.
The flooding has been classed a federal emergency. Hospitals in Orsk have paused providing routine medical care, and patients have been redirected to facilities in the nearby town of Novotroitsk and to the city of Orenburg, west of Orsk, Russian media outlet RBC reported on Sunday.
The water levels of the Ural River in Orsk fell by 9cm overnight, Russian state media reported on Monday, citing local authorities. Officials have warned residents to only drink bottled water, and state media said deliveries of water were bound for Orenburg from Moscow and other Russian cities.
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Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
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