Russia Issues a Plot Urgent Evacuation Order After Rising Water Levels Flood Almost 1000 Houses

In certain places, the Tobol River in Russia has risen to levels that are almost twice as high as they were originally.
As river levels continue to rise quickly, authorities in Russia’s Ural and southwest Siberian areas have issued urgent evacuation orders, causing extensive flooding, power disruptions, and the forced relocation of inhabitants.
In the Kurgan region, which borders the Tobol River close to the border with Kazakhstan, more than 300 dwellings and over 700 residential plots have been inundated, according to Russia’s emergency ministry.

“The water level in the Tobol River is rising swiftly,” the ministry said via the Telegram messaging app.

Late on Monday, local officials acknowledged that power had been shut off to about 1,500 households in Kurgan, the region’s administrative center.
Concerned about the gravity of the situation, Kurgan region governor Vadim Shumkov predicted a potentially “very difficult” scenario in which the Tobol River’s waters rose up to 36 feet, nearly twice the bursting threshold at some places.

A significant rise in the water level in the Ishim River, which passes through the town, forced the 65,000 residents of this Tyumen district of southwest Siberia—which borders Kazakhstan—to flee immediately on Tuesday.

The governor of the area issued a warning late on Monday, citing the possibility of record-breaking high water levels in the region’s rivers in the days ahead.
The greatest flooding in living memory is occurring in the southern Ural region, southwest Siberia, and northern Kazakhstan. The situation is made worse by torrential rainfall and fast-melting snowfall over already-saturated ground during the winter season.