Threat of flooding remains in Siberia

MOSCOW, June 9 (Itar-Tass) - The threat of flooding of houses remains in Barnaul, the Altai Territory. The Russian Emergencies Ministry’s spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told Itar-Tass on Monday the Ob River rose 17 cm higher over the past day. Sixteen settlements in six municipal districts remained flooded. Twenty medical teams arrived by an Ilyushin-76 plane to provide medical care for the population. A total of 200 tonnes of humanitarian aid cargoes were delivered to the region. Regional authorities have estimated the damage at $40 million. The floods have damaged 19 electro-transmission line supports, 230 km of roads and destroyed 27 bridges. In the affected zone are 2,500 people. According to the Roshydromet federal meteorological service, up to 1,000 natural attacks - windstorms, hail, floods and typhoons - are reported in Russia every year. More than 500 cities and towns and tens of thousands of villages a year are faced with flood threat. Seven devastating floods occurred in Russia in the past 20 years with damage totaling $2.2 billion. The Far East and Siberia were hit most severely - Yakutia, the Arctic region, in 1998 and 2001 and the Trans-Baikal and the Khabarovsk Territory in 2013. There were four devastating floods in the Southern Federal District - in 2002, 2010 and 2012 in the Krasnodar Territory and Dagestan. The Volga region was seriously hit in 1994 -- in Bashkiria heavy rains caused floods that broke a dam. Learn more on itar-tass.com