The toll has increased in recent hours. Ten people died and 23 were injured in a violent storm that hit Ukraine, according to the interior minister. “In total, ten people died” in the regions of Odessa and Mykolaiv (south), that of Kharkiv (east) and in the city of Kiev (north), said Tuesday, November 28, Minister Igor Klymenko on Telegram. In Ukraine, a snowstorm left more than 2,000 communities without power and blocked highways. The death of four people was also announced by the authorities cited by the media in Moldova.
Dubbed “storm of the century” and “mega-storm” by the Russian media, these bad weather, underway since Sunday, most severely affected Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed in 2014, southwest Russia and the regions partially occupied Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson in Ukraine, according to the Russian Energy Ministry. What happened in this region already scarred by war? L’Express takes stock.
Russian authorities recommend staying away from water
The body of a man was found in Sochi, a popular Russian seaside resort, according to regional authorities, who recommended the population not to go near the water. In Crimea, another man who had gone to “watch the waves” died, an adviser to Crimea’s governor, Oleg Krioutchkov, told public television.
One person was also killed on board a boat in the Kerch Strait, between Crimea and Russia, and a body was discovered in Novorossiysk, in the Krasnodar region, according to Russian news agencies.
People without electricity
As of Monday morning, “around 1.9 million people” were without electricity in these regions “due to unfavorable weather conditions,” said the Russian Energy Ministry. In Crimea alone, this storm left 400,000 people without power, according to the energy company Krymenergo, cited by Russian news agencies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received reports of these “weather disasters” and ordered his government to take measures to help the affected territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
In the Krasnodar region, which is also home to the seaside resort of Anapa, hundreds of trees as well as numerous metal constructions equipping the beaches were uprooted by the wind during the night from Sunday to Monday, causing injuries, explained the local branch of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.
In Vitiazevo, near Anapa, the storm caused the grounding of a large cargo ship flying the flag of Belize, the Blue Shark, according to the same source. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium announced that it would suspend oil loading and shelter its tankers due to “extremely unfavorable weather conditions”, wind gusts of up to 86 km/h and waves reaching eight meters from above.
Crimea particularly affected
In Crimea, the Black Sea overflowed onto highways; Russian television broadcast images of waves breaking over cars trying to drive through the water. Its governor, Sergei Aksionov, declared a state of emergency and announced a day off on Monday due to bad weather.
“We have experienced a real Armageddon: residents do not remember seeing wind and waves of such power until now,” Crimean Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov told Russian TV channel Rossia 24.
In Sevastopol, more than 500 marine animals were killed in the flooding of the local Aquarium caused by the storm, city governor Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram. According to him, the weather forecast is hardly reassuring at the moment, with rain, snow and wind gusts of up to 30 meters per second expected in Crimea on Monday.