Russia declares day of mourning for flood victims

Moscow (CNN) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin declared Monday a national day of mourning in the of devastating, raging floodwaters that tore streets in the southern part of the country and killed than 170 people, according to Russian media reports.

A Russian interior spokesman told the official Itar-Tass news agency late Sunday that 171 people died to the floods.

A majority of these deaths -- 159, according to the interior ministry -- were in and around Krymsk, a city of 57,000 residents where torrential rains spurred waters to surge 7 meters (23 feet) as people sleeping Friday night. Another 10 died in Gelendzhik district and two in the Black Sea of Novorossiysk, Itar-Tass reported.

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"People just ran their homes because there was a huge wall of water," one woman told the Russian News Service, a Moscow- radio station.

In to the dead, another 320 people sought medical assistance -- 104 of required hospitalization -- the emergencies ministry reported, to state-run RIA Novosti.

The day of mourning will remember 14 Russian pilgrims headed a Ukrainian monastery who died Saturday after their bus off the road and crashed into a ditch in accident that was not flood-related, state- media said. Twenty-nine people survived that crash.

Yet the higher toll, and the greatest controversy, involves has happened in recent days in Russia's Krasnodar region the Black Sea.

One driver, according to the English-language Russian channel RT, said his truck was pushed tens of meters floodwaters, while the force of the floodwaters ripped a 10-year-old girl of her mother's arms.

Five people in the seaside resort town of Gelendzhik electrocuted after power lines collapsed the water. RT, citing witnesses, said a man trying to cross a large puddle initially electrocuted, and then four others who tried to come to his were then killed by the electrical current.

Those not harmed, but living in the flood-ravaged area, still plenty of challenges such as electricity, a disrupted water supply, damaged roads and faulty communication. RIA Novosti reported more 5,000 homes were flooded, while Itar-Tass said 254 had destroyed.

"The scale of it is spectacular, to be , and very tragic. The water came with force that it tore up the asphalt," Krasnodar Gov. Alexander Tkachov said Twitter after seeing pictures from Krymsk, to RT.

Even with the prospect of more rains and floods on the , officials have begun making promises to roughly 20,000 people most affected.

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That includes payouts starting Monday of 10,000 rubles (U.S. $304) to person whose home has destroyed, reports RIA Novosti. And Tkachov vowed a public meeting that the government will "build ... a new home for you in three four months, before the beginning of the cold period," according the same report.

The U.S. government has also vowed support, a statement on the U.S. Embassy of Moscow's Facebook page saying Washington is "ready to help the Russian government" it spearheads the recovery effort.

A criminal investigation has been by Russian authorities to look into there was negligence on the of any officials for failing to warn residents of potential flooding, RT reported.

Russian Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov said the flood's cause was "not technical," according to Itar-Tass. This report Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin as saying "there were no mass water releases or overflow the dam" from the Neberdzhayevskoye Reservoir.

The Krasnodar region isn't the one in Russia to be affected by powerful storms. An emergencies ministry spokesman told Itar-Tass about 166,000 people in Chechnya were powerless due to a combination of rains and strong winds.


Adapted from: CNN, July 9, 2012.