SIMFEROPOL, June 20. /TASS/. Evacuation of residents began at the urban-type coastal settlement of Koreiz near Crimea’s Yalta on Saturday evening, said Oleg Kryuchkov, an advisor to the head of Crimea.
Numerous houses in Koreiz were flooded on Friday night. The situation was made worse by a minor mudslide that damaged one building.
"Partial evacuation of residents from affected houses in Koreiz has begun," Kryuchkov wrote in a Telegram channel for Crimean media.
Meanwhile, Yalta Mayor Yanina Pavlenko named the two hardest-hit areas and called upon their residents to evacuate. Koreiz is one of those areas, with the other one being the crossing of Krivoshta and Vergasov streets in Yalta.
"The situation in the Greater Yalta area is stable. There are two areas that still cause serious concern," Pavlenko said in a video address, published on her Facebook page.
Also, the mayor addressed residents of several apartment buildings along the Krivoshta and Vergasov streets, partially inundated by a swollen river. She asked people living in the worst-affected apartments to move to a temporary shelter set up in a nearby school.
On Thursday night, Crimea was battered by torrential rains and gusts of the northwest wind. A regional state of emergency was declared. The floods hit the resort city of Kerch and eastern regions of the peninsula. In the south of Crimea, the city of Yalta faced over 135 mm of precipitation. Yanina Pavlenko, the head of Yalta’s administration, said that the city had not witnessed such heavy rain since 1922, when the city had over 190 mm of precipitation. As many as 26,200 customers were left without electricity. One person was killed and 19 injured. One person remains unaccounted for.
As a result, hundreds of houses all over the republic were damaged. 13 hotels were flooded in Yalta, with evacuation ordered in two of them. Beach infrastructure was damaged as well. At the moment, post-disaster recovery efforts are under way in many areas, including works to clear debris and resume electricity, water and gas supplies.
Water supply in Yalta
The authorities of Crimea’s coastal city of Yalta had to limit deliveries of potable water to the population following an accident at the city’s water treatment plant, the city administration said in a statement.
"Due to an accident at a water treatment plant that ensures water supply to the urban district of Yalta, water supplies to separate city districts are limited to two hours a day," the statement says. "The water supply schedule depends on how quickly reservoirs for city districts are filled."
"Additional water deliveries will be carried out by water trucks," the document says.
Situation in Kerch
In Crimea’s Azov Sea city of Kerch, floodwater has already receded from 95% of city streets, Crimea’s head Sergei Aksyonov said, adding that only limited areas remain inundated.
"As far as the city of Kerch is concerned, I can say that water receded from approximately about 95% of the city. However, there are still several [inundated] areas," he said.
The situation remains difficult in the nearby settlements of Priozernoye and Novootradnoye in the east of the peninsula. About 90 houses there were flooded.
"18 houses or so were affected badly as water arrived at night. People said they were standing practically neck-deep in the water, holding children in their hands. Waterworks were never intended to deal with this amount of rainfall, so they could not cope with it," Aksyonov said.
Weather forecasts
Torrential rains, with occasional hailstorms and winds of up to 20 meters per, second will continue in Crimea until Sunday’s afternoon at least, Research Director of the Russian state weather service Roman Vilfand told TASS.
"Crimea [will have] torrential rains, hailstorms and winds of 15-20 meters per second," he said, adding that this kind of weather will continue until Sunday noon at least.
"The rains [will not be] as heavy as they used to be before the weekend, it’s not the same," the expert added. "They are unlikely to cause such massive damage.".