YAKUTSK, May 21 (AVN) - A government commission has started estimating the amount of damage caused by catastrophic floods to the town of Lensk, located in the west of the central Siberian Yakutian autonomous republic, a commission member said on Monday.
According to preliminary estimates, floods fully destroyed about 4,000 residential houses in Lensk and the Lena district alone, Colonel General Stanislav Suanov, deputy emergencies minister, told the Military News Agency. Yakutia will not be able to erect more than 550 houses on its own before autumn comes, that is why assistance from the entire country will be required to provide housing for victims of the disaster.
The Yakutian capital Yakutsk is also in the disaster zone. The water level in the Lena River has reached 834cm, while the critical level makes 780cm.
Four SU-24 Fencer bombers and four MI-8 Hip helicopters continue dropping bombs and explosive charges on the 30km ice jam 50km from Yakutsk down the Lena, Lieutenant-General Gennady Korotkin, head of the Emergencies Ministry operations group in Yakutia, said. As many as 580 people have been evacuated from the city. It the water remains at the current level the more people will have to be relocated.
According to the ministry's Far Eastern regional centre, a total of 45,700 people have been evacuated from 30 localities of Yakutia as a result of flooding.