MOSCOW, September 19 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s Investigative Committee has initiated two criminal cases over neglect of duties by officials upon the results of pre-investigation inspections in the regions of the Far East, Vladimir Markin, an official spokesman for the committee told Itar-Tass Thursday.
One case was opened in the Armur region over the destruction of a water reservoir dam that occurred August 10, 2013. The water reservoir is located on the northern outskirts of the town of Shimanovsk and its goal is to prevent the negative impact of waters of the Bolshaya Pera River basin on the adjoining areas.
Prosecutors say the dam was entered in the local register of municipal properties November 1, 2003. May 11, 2010, the water reservoir was also entered in the register as ‘abandoned property’.
“The problem is that the municipal officials in Shimanovsk, who are responsible for managing the town property, did not file a petition with the court to acknowledge the municipality’s ownership rights over the water reservoir before August 16, 2013,” Markin said.
“In the light of it, an operator of that hydraulic engineering facility hasn’t been appointed to date and hence there has been no proper technical maintenance of the facility,” he said.
As a result of an inundation that started in August, the Shimanovsk reservoir dam was destroyed and all the water it had been keeping rushed into the town, affecting 69 residential houses that were home to 328 people. Their properties were fully or partly destroyed.
The resultant damage stands at around 27 million rubles /about $887,000/, Markin said.
The other case was opened in the Jewish Autonomous region, also affected by this year’s unprecedented floods.