Heavy rains trigger Gejukh reservoir dam collapse in Dagestan

Heavy downpours triggered a collapse at the Gejukh reservoir dam in Dagestan. According to the Russian Emergencies Ministry's press service, the structure gave way following persistent torrential rainfall.

Three people died, one of them a minor. According to the Russian emergencies ministry’s press service, the reservoir overflowed with water following torrential rains News.Az reports, citing TASS.

The Russian emergencies ministry’s aircraft are surveying the situation, the ministry’s department for Dagestan said.

More than 2,000 residential houses have been flooded in nine settlements in Dagestan, the emergencies ministry said.

Landslide, rockfall, and mudslide warnings are in place, the ministry noted.

An extension to an apartment building in Makhachkala collapsed due to soil erosion. Three people died as a result of the natural calamity.

Three passenger cars with ten people inside were swept away by the flood, Dagestan’s Emergencies Minister Nariman Kazimagomedov told.

Seven people were carried by the stream into a river off a road in Dagestan’s Derbent district. They were rescued by locals.

A pregnant woman and a teenager later died, a spokesman for Dagestan’s disaster medicine center. A woman died in a landslide in the settlement of Kirki.

More than 350 people were evacuated from settlements in Dagestan’s Derbent district after the dam collapse, the local administration wrote on its Telegram channel.

Most of those evacuated went to stay with relatives, the rest - at temporary shelters, it said.

Those affected by the calamity are provided with hot meals and medical assistance.

Sixty-three road sections have been reopened for motor traffic.

Clean-up operations involve 46 special vehicles and 95 road workers.

The settlements of Mamedkala, Yuny Pakhar, Gedzhuk, and Kala have been partially evacuated.

The local prosecutor’s office is monitoring the evacuation from settlements in the Derbent district amid risks of flooding due to the overflow of the Gejukh reservoir.

Clean-up operations are underway. More than 4,000 people were evacuated from four neighborhoods in the immediate flood area, the Dagestan department of the Russian emergencies ministry said.

Chairman of the ruling United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev instructed the party to send additional forces and allocate additional funds to deal with the aftermath of the natural calamity in Dagestan.

A criminal case was opened following the death of a young woman and a child in the Derbent district, a spokesman for the regional department of the Russian Investigative Committee said.

Investigators are probing into the circumstances and causes of these deaths.

News.Az 

By Leyla Şirinova