RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service

Situation Update No. 2

Posted:2010-03-12, 08:00:29 [UTC]

Ref.no.: AC-20100312-25291-KAZ

Situation Update No. 2
On 2010-03-12 at 18:24:39 [UTC]

Event: Technological Disaster
Location: Kazakhstan Almatinskaya Oblast Distric t of Aksuisky

Number of Missing: 20 person(s)
Number of Evacuated: 3000 person(s)

Thousands of people fled their homes after two dams burst in Kazakhstan, washing away scores of homes and leaving 20 people missing, locals and officials said on Friday. Flood waters from rivers swollen by unusually heavy winter snowfalls and an early spring spilled over the walls of a dam in the southern Aksuisky district and washed away a second in the nearby Karatalsky district. The emergency situations ministry in the former Soviet republic said that the breaching of the dam in Aksuisky on Thursday night had flooded a village of 3,000 people, who were evacuated to a nearby city. "According to our official data, 20 people are considered missing as a result of the floods ... but this is only preliminary data," ministry spokesman Eldar Rayimbakov said. "At this point, it is too early to say with certainty that they are dead." Regional officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but Russian news agency Interfax-Kazakhstan said that at least 20 people had been killed and 60 homes washed away in the raging flood waters. In the regional capital Taldykorgan, evacuees described the last-minute exodus from the village of Kyzyl-Agash as the flood waters began to spill over the dam. "Our neighbours came and told us to drop everything and run, that the water was about to breach the dam. This was at eight o'clock in the evening," said Razbek Alakkan, wiping back tears. "So we abandoned our farm and left. All of our cattle died, but thank God we are alive," he added. In the second incident in Karatalsky, officials said that an entire dam was washed away, forcing the evacuation of a village of 820 people, most of whom have taken shelter in a school. The deluge had also brought down a bridge on a main highway connecting the southern city of Almaty with the northern city of Ust-Kamenogorsk near the border with Russia, the emergency ministry said. Around 300 rescue workers have been sent to the scene, the ministry said. The country's Prime Minister Karim Masimov was also due. Flooding is common in Kazakhstan, a mountainous nation which borders Russia and China. The wealthiest of the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan has struggled to maintain its ageing infrastructure and has been hit by a series of disasters in recent years as a result. Thirty-eight people were killed last year when a drugs treatment facility caught fire in the city of Taldykorgan, and a warehouse fire in the capital Astana killed at least 16.