A dam has burst in the Russian mountain town of Orsk in the Urals and the population is being evacuated, local emergency services announced on Friday. The state news agency TASS reports the Ministry of Emergency Situations as saying that 4,000 houses, home to 10,000 residents of the suburban area of Orska, which has about 230,000 inhabitants, have been flooded.
Emergency services are evacuating residents and building a dam in Orsk, which is located about 1,800 kilometers east of Moscow, near the border with Kazakhstan.
Footage shared on Telegram shows water bursting through a gap in a low, earthen dam.
A state of emergency has been declared in the Orenburg region, the Ministry of Emergency Situations announced, whose staff helped 3,500 people affected by floods across the country in recent days.
The region, which includes Orsk, as well as other Ural provinces and neighboring parts of Kazakhstan, has also been hit by floods.