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Epidemic threatening flood-stricken Krymsk

The flood-affected town of Krymsk in southern Russia continues to live in an emergency regime, but rescue operations have already been completed. People continue to furbish their flooded houses and flats, while humanitarian consignments sent for flood victims from all corners of the country help to avoid food shortages. However, the threat of epidemic is hanging over the town. Moreover, looters enter neighbourhoods, plundering humanitarian batches.

An activist of the movement Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, Viktor Chirikov, believes that enthusiasm of volunteers who gathered humanitarian aid for flood victims played a low down trick with them, Novye Izvestiya wrote. People left homeless after the flood have no place to take goods, therefore humanitarian batches in most cases are left outside, getting into the hands of looters. Another problem is unsanitary conditions, when water retreated, it uncovered bodies of dead animals. “Vaccination is carried out, but it is necessary to prevent possible diseases more strongly. It would be good to take people out of the area for sanitization,” Chirikov said.

The Investigative Committee is ready to fulfill the president’s instructions to investigate the catastrophe within seven days, but it is necessary to study natural calamity reasons and actions of the Emergencies Ministry. Meanwhile, on Tuesday most members of the State Duma declined to consider Krasnodar Territory governor Alexander Tkachev’s resignation. The director of the Institute for Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Danilov-Danilyan, expressed confidence that “the local authorities demonstrated their weakness and failure to realize their tasks. They absolutely learnt no lessons from the 2002 flood that hit this area. It did nothing to create a warning service, because a news ticker, especially when the town is blacked out, and text messages are simply nonsense and comedy against the backdrop of this tragedy.”

People want to know the truth about what had happened on the tragic night (nobody believes in the official death toll) and why its consequences proved so dramatic, Rossiyaskay Gazeta wrote.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev set the task for the government to complete the construction of new houses for flood victims until the end of October and set the deadline for November. Around 12 million dollars (360 million roubles) will be allocated from the budget to build new housing in flood-hit regions.