The heaviest snow melt in decades has burst rivers across Siberia and north Kazakhstan, flooding cities and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee.
At least eight people have died and hundreds of livestock have drowned in an area the size of western Europe.
A state of emergency has been declared in 10 of Kazakhstan’s 17 regions and Russian officials have evacuated the city of Orsk after a dam burst.
In a video addressing the nation on Saturday evening, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described the floods as the worst in 80 years.
“A natural disaster occurred, the likes of which had not been seen for many years,” he said.
Rising temperatures linked to global warming have melted snow more quickly than usual in mountainous areas and on the steppe, sending tonnes of water downstream.
Several towns in north Kazakhstan first raised the alarm last week as swollen rivers burst and dams failed. This week, the Kazakh city of Aktobe, near Russia, flooded.
On Friday evening, the Ural River, which flows south from Russia’s Ural Mountains through the Siberian steppe, rose to dangerously high levels. Within a few hours, a dam defending the city of Orsk, home to just over 220,000 people, burst.
A video showed rescue workers in boats navigating between nearly-submerged roofs and stray dogs marooned on small patches of high ground.
Drone footage from Gagarin Square on the southern edge of Orsk showed freezing flood waters lapping at a hospital and water cascading down a wide street.
