ENVIRONMENT-RUSSIA: Massive Floods Devastate Siberian Republic

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Andrei Ivanov and Judith Perera

MOSCOW, Jun 11 1998 (IPS) - Over 50,000 people have been made homeless and 15 people have died in floods which are sweeping through Russia’s Siberian republic of Yakutia.

“You can’t image the scenes,” says the republic’s Minister of Nature Conservation Vasily Alexeyev. “Whole towns have been left with no houses or possessions and thousands of animals are floating dead in the water. All our crops have been destroyed.

“Many people in the flooded areas are without shelter or even the basic means of subsistence” A special government commission set up to tackle the emergency estimates the damage to have already reached 320 million dollars.

Damage has been especially severe as the flood water is often accompanied by giant floating floes of ice that smash into buildings.

The floods began on May 15, but now 17 of Yakutia’s 35 provinces are under water, including 20 towns and 166 villages. Roads, bridges, power stations and electric power lines have been inundated as well as almost 700 industrial buildings and 18 hospitals.

Yakutia, formally known as the Sakha Republic, is the largest northern region of the Russian Federation. It accounts for one sixth of Russia’s entire territory, and 40 percent of its land is inside the Arctic Circle.

The first village to be affected was Orta-Naakhara in the Lenski region but very soon 90 percent of Lensk town, with its population of some 30,000, was under water. Within four days the flooding spread to 16 other districts in the Lena and Aldan river basins.

The flooding is partly due to a long and especially severe winter. The usual spring thawing of the Lena river was delayed and even at the end of May average air temperatures throughout the territory were below average by 1.3 degrees with sharp decreases registered at night of 2-6 degrees.

In addition to the unusually low temperatures in the upper reaches of the Lena river, there was twice as much snow as normal, as well as strong winds and low cloud.

All this increased the thickness of the ice so that when the thaw finally began, huge amounts of water and ice poured into the rivers blocking them in many places and leading to flooding.

The thaw brought exceptionally high spring waters, up to six metres higher than long term averages across the Lena and Aldan river basins. On May 18 the Lena river was 6.26 metres above the norm, the highest ever, beating the previous record, set in 1966, by 83 centimetres.

Although the authorities knew flooding was probable, the scale took them by surprise. Some 45,000 people were evacuated by helicopter, boat and road and engineers have used 56 tons of explosives were used to dislodge the jammed ice floes that were blocking the flow of water and worsening the floods. Explosives were even dropped on the floes by air.

This crisis work has prevented the complete flooding of the republic capital Yakutsk, nearly 6,000 miles east of Moscow. Russia’s Federal Ministry of Emergency Situations has also managed to get some first aid through to the affected areas.

“But the problem is too great for us to tackle alone,” says Alexeyev. “We need some kind of international disaster relief to provide shelter, warmth and food for the victims of this calamity.”

Life in the region is difficult at the best of times because of its climate and remoteness. ‘Summer’ lasts just six weeks and during that time all necessary supplies must be brought in for the rest of the year.

The rivers and major transport routes are usually open for just three months of the year and the republic depends on outside supplies for almost 80 percent of all its consumables.

At the same time it is a major supplier of raw materials including oil, metals and precious stones — the mining of which has left vast areas severely polluted with toxic heavy metals.

Thus not only has the flooding cut vital communication links, it also threatens to spread that pollution across vast areas which were previously unaffected.

Luckily, points out Alexeyev, the flooded regions do not include the areas in Yakutia which were used for Soviet experiments using nuclear explosions for industrial and scientific purposes. “These were done on higher land, otherwise we would also have had to contend with the spread of radioactive contamination.”

The economy of the republic was already under strain due to the general crisis of payments affecting Russia. Most people have received no salaries since January and there are no spare resources to support those affected by the flooding. The government is appealing for international assistance.

Alexeyev says there has never before been such severe flooding in Yakutia. “It is an unusual phenomenon which is almost certainly related to global warming,” he notes. “It should be of great concern to all of the planet that things are going so wrong.”

Yakutia needs help, and fast. For in just two months it will be the start of the Arctic winter once again. And for those who are still without shelter then, it will be their last.