KRASNOYARSK, May 31 /ITAR-TASS/. The number of evacuated people, flooded residential houses and countryside gardens is growing in South Siberia, the Siberian regional emergency situation centre told Itar-Tass on Saturday.

Rescuers said that the flood had inundated 210 residential houses and 641 countryside gardens in four districts at 9.30pm local time (5.30pm Moscow time) in the Russian south-central Siberian republic of Khakassia. As many as 304 people were evacuated to safe places, their number is 50% higher than on Saturday morning.

Twelve residential houses and 22 countryside gardens remain in the flood area in two districts of the far south Siberian republic of Tuva from where 124 people were evacuated.

But the hardest flood situation remains in south-central Siberia’s Altai Territory, where 2.69 thousand residential houses and 3.27 thousand countryside gardens in several districts are flooded. Rescuers have brought 5,747 people from there to safe places.

Rescuers noted that the flood situation in south Siberia remained heavy, though the water level in rivers was going down in several districts of Altai Republic, except for Katun River and Teletskoye Lake.

The water level is rising on Katun River from the settlement of Ust-Muny to the administrative republican border with Altai Territory. The hardest flood situation has emerged in the village of Maima, nine kilometres away from the city of Gorno-Altaisk. As many as 545 houses are flooded in this rural settlement making more than half of houses in the flood area in the republic. The water level is growing in Katun River by 2 to 3 centimetres hourly.

The flood level is forecasted to rise within 1.5 days, the regional emergency situation department said. Seventy more houses are under threat of flooding.

Ten settlements are in the natural disaster area, five of them are cut from the dry land. According to latest reports, the number of flooded houses has increased from 672 to 966 houses for the last few hours. A total of 3,471 people, including 927 children, live in them.

The number of evacuatees went up 150 people to 1,820 people, including 632 children. As many as 367 adults and 87 children are staying at temporary camps. 1,436 countryside gardens are flooded as well, it was earlier reported about 1,280 countryside gardens inundated.

Seventeen power lines were damaged, 16 motor bridges and five pedestrian passages were destroyed, 230 kilometres of motorways were damaged.

The sharply worse weather triggered a devastating flood on the rivers in Altai Territory, Siberian republics of Khakassia and Altai this week. Thousands of residential houses are flooded, rescuers are evacuating flood-affected people. The emergency was declared in all three regions.