Russia and Kazakhstan battle record floods as rivers rise further

The Russian city of Orenburg battled rising water levels on Thursday after major rivers across Russia and Kazakhstan burst their banks in the worst flooding seen in the areas in nearly a century.The deluge of meltwater has forced over 110,000 people from their homes in Russia's Ural Mountains, Siberia and Kazakhstan as major rivers such as the Ural, which flows through Kazakhstan into the Caspian, overwhelmed embankments.

Residents in the city of Orenburg said the waters of the Ural rose very swiftly and to far beyond breaking point, forcing them to flee with just their children, pets and a few belongings.

"It came very quickly at night," Taisiya, 71, told Reuters in Orenburg, a city of 550,000 about 1,200 km (750 miles) east of Moscow. "By the time I got ready, I couldn't get out."
Whole areas of the city were underwater, and the Ural rose another 32 cm (13 inches) to 10.54 metres (34.6 ft), 124 cm (49 inches) above the level considered by local authorities as safe. Officials warned the river would rise further.

The flooding has struck Russia's Urals and the northern Kazakhstan worst, though waters are also rising southern parts of Western Siberia, the largest hydrocarbon basin in the world, and in some places near the Volga, Europe's biggest river.Water levels were also rising in Siberia's Tomsk, which sits on the Tom River, a tributary of the Ob, and in Kurgan, which straddles the Tobol river.