MOSCOW (AP) - Russian aircraft bombed ice jams through the night, but failed
to stop the Lena River from flooding in eastern Siberia, where thousands of
people are being evacuated, officials said Friday. Twice during the pre-dawn
hours, aircraft tried again to break up the ice that has backed up the Lena
until it overflowed its banks, the Interfax news agency reported, citing the
Emergency Situations Ministry. No deaths have been reported from the
flooding, according to the prime minister's office. But water levels
continued to rise by 1.2 inches per hour, NTV television reported. Many of
the evacuees are from the town of Lensk, which remained under water and
without electricity or telephones. Ministry official Vladimir Goryachev said
on RTR government television that about 80 percent of the town's residents
had been moved out. ``Despite the efforts made all day yesterday to unblock
the ice jams below Lensk - more than 80 tons of explosives were used - it has
not been possible to unblock the jams and the city is practically entirely
flooded,'' Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said at a Cabinet meeting.
According to the prime minister, more than 400 wooden houses had been washed
away in Lensk, and another 1,700 houses had been damaged. The town's hospital
as well as 2,000 additional residents still need to be evacuated, said
Kasyanov. Another 25,000 people living in villages downstream from Lensk may
soon face rising waters, Interfax said. Residents of Yakutsk, capital of the
vast and sparsely populated region of Yakutia, were also bracing for the
flood. Igor Paskin, an expert with the Yakutsk branch of the Emergency
Situations Ministry, said authorities had set up 10 evacuation centers.
Paskin said the city is prepared, since some degree of flooding is a regular
occurrence in Siberia. Yakutia was the focus of most relief efforts, with
planes flying baby food, tents, electric heaters and pumps to the area,
Interfax said. But the annual flooding is spread across provincial Russia,
with thousands of homes in dozens of towns inundated. The water level in
Irkutsk in Siberia and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk in the Far East was returning to
normal Friday, the ITAR-Tass news agency said. Floods have left about 4,000
people homeless in the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia, ITAR-Tass
quoted regional housing spokesman Vladimir Glukhov as saying.
Gray Fox Weather Service
http://theweathersite.tripod.com/grayfoxweatherservicetropicalweatherpage/
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