ASTANA -- The Kazakh government has sent additional rescue teams to West Kazakhstan Province to deal with ongoing floods, which have hit much of the country's north and west. Meanwhile, across the border in southern Russia, officials braced for the Ishim River to crest.
The Kazakh government said in a statement on April 22 that 600 military personnel and experts from the Emergencies Ministry had been deployed to the region, where the water level in the Ural River in the regional capital, Oral, reached 8.5 meters a day earlier, which is above the point where it is considered "dangerous."
Emergencies Ministry spokesman Asqar Sharip said on April 22 that 23,085 people returned to their houses after water levels went down in the northern provinces of Amola, Aqtobe, Atyrau, and North Kazakhstan. According to Sharip, 8,872 people, including 3,852 children, remain in temporary shelters.
"The water was diverted from 4,554 private houses and 2,767 households. More than 11.4 million cubic meters of water have been pumped out, 5.3 million sand sacks were used to stop the water," Sharip said.
"Works to divert and pump out water from 5,842 private houses and 1,061 households are under way in the four regions named."
Kazakh officials said earlier that at least seven people died and two went missing in the floods.
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Kazakhs Prepare For Second Wave As Central Asia, Russia Struggle With Floods
In neighboring Russia, emergency officials said on April 22 that the situation remains tense in several regions flooded by a combination of heavy rains and a massive snowmelt sparked by unseasonably warm weather.
Flooding has washed across the region, forcing tens of thousands to seek shelter and clean water supplies.
The Foundation for Public Control over Environmental and Population Safety said on April 22 that in the Russian region of Kurgan that borders Kazakhstan, floodwaters had pushed uranium waste from the defunct Dobrovolnoye uranium field into the Tobol River.
Subsidiaries of Russia's state nuclear agency Rosatom produced uranium at Dobrovolnoye and on April 16 it said the floods didn't pose a threat to the uranium mines in Dobrovolnoye.
Rosatom said four days later that the floods had bypassed the uranium mines.
However, the foundation on April 22 issued a video showing that the territory in the area between the villages of Trud-i-Znaniye and Zverinogolovskoye were completely underwater, undercutting Rosatom's claim.
Adding to that, Andrei Ozharovsky of the Radioactive Waste Safety program said uranium salts had been washed into the Tobol River and will cause an increase in radiation-related illnesses in the region.
The situation also remains especially dramatic in the Russian regions of Tyumen and Orenburg, officials said, with thousands of people forced to leave their homes.
"The situation with flooding in the Tyumen region remains tense," regional Governor Aleksandr Moor said on Telegram.
"The Ishim River in the city has exceeded 10.5 meters. The rise over the last 24 hours was 140 centimeters. But the intensity of the increase has subsided and we expect the maximum water level to be hit in the near future," he said, adding that the river could crest as early as late on April 22.
As of April 22, officials said 14,743 private houses remain under water in 190 towns and villages in Russia's southern regions bordering Kazakhstan.