REPORTING. "The mayor told us that the dam will hold" : after the floods in Russia, the anger of the inhabitants of the city of Orsk against the authorities
Cairo: Hani Kamal El-Din
After a sudden rise in temperatures, record floods flooded entire regions in Kazakhstan and Russia, in the south of the Urals and in eastern Siberia. The level of several rivers has risen extremely quickly since Friday April 5, breaking 80-year-old records such as on the Ural River, which notably flooded Orsk, on the geographical border between Europe and Asia. In this town of 200,000 inhabitants, nearly 2,000 homes were flooded and 8,000 people evacuated and affected. But something rare in Russia, this working-class city is screaming its anger, as Franceinfo’s special correspondent was able to observe.
For a week, hundreds of residents have been queuing every day in front of the theater to collect a food aid package like Serguei, whose house is under two meters of water. “I built it 12 years ago, everything was well renovated and now everything is under water. I don’t know how to get home anymore, I’m staying with friends. But when will the water will go down? Where will I sleep?”asks this disaster victim.
Sergei is angry and distraught, like Elena, one of his neighbors. “We are in great difficulty and our authorities are silentenrages this widow who lives with her mother and her three children. They don’t tell us anything at all. I made a request to the state services, but I got nothing.” Elena shows us her clothes. That’s all she has left, she explains. With her mother, they receive around 30,000 rubles (300 euros) in pensions which are supplemented by a few odd jobs.
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