KHABAROVSK, August 29 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Khabarovsk, Russian Far East, during a working tour of the flood-stricken territories in Amur River Region on Thursday.

Before this the president visited Amur Region, Russian Far East, where he had made a helicopter flight over the villages in Blagoveshchensk district that remain in the flood area, met with representatives of the flood-hit farms and held a meeting, at which he said he intends to meet with members of the committees, which inspect the region and pay compensations to people.

In Khabarovsk Putin will hold a meeting devoted to the flood situation on Thursday. Presidential aides Andrei Belousov and Yuri Trutnev, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, the ministers of economic, social and law enforcement blocs, the chiefs of federal agencies and services and the heads of the regions hit in the flood will participate in the meeting. Meanwhile, the chief executives of Yakutia, Primorsky Territory and Magadan Region will report to the president about the flood situation at a video conference.

The flood keeps spreading in several regions of the Far East. While the flood is receding gradually from the settlements in Amur Region, the water level in Amur River keeps growing near Khabarovsk. According to the Far Eastern centre of hydrometeorology and environment monitoring, the water level is expected to reach its maximum level in Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Nikolayevsk-on-Amur and six districts.

Despite the information coming to Putin constantly about all major emergencies in the country, he frequently prefers to make sure for himself at the incident site that all necessary measures were taken to save people and minimize the damages.

The president flied urgently to the Russian regions, which are stricken in the flood, many times. In May 2001 he went to the flooded Yakutia city of Lensk to develop urgently the measures to clean up the aftermath of a devastating flood. Putin inspected southern Russian regions damaged in the floods in June 2002, October 2010 and July 2012. In particular, he visited the flood-hit settlement of Barsukovskaya and the city of Krymsk.

The current working trip of the president to eastern Russia continues since last Monday. The situation in the Russian federal constituent territories, which were damaged in the flood triggered by heavy rain, is high on the agenda of Putin’s working trip. The first leg of the working trip was particularly devoted to the situation in the energy sector.

For the last three days the president visited Kemerovo Region, southeast of Western Siberia, where he held a meeting of the committee for the development of the fuel and energy sector and energy security and met with the miners, members of the families of coalminers, who died in the gas explosion at the coalmine Raspadskaya in 2010. Then Putin went to Khakassia, Southern Siberia, where he held a meeting devoted to the development of the electric power industry in Siberia and the Far East at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station. Meanwhile, presidential plenipotentiary representative in the Siberian Federal District Viktor Tolokonsky informed Putin about the situation in the federal district.

Putin stated about his intention to inspect personally the flood-hit regions in the previous week. “We should assess all the damages and develop a plan of concrete actions of the regions and the federal authorities to restore the destroyed infrastructure and households,” he said in Rostov-on-Don on August 22.