Violent wind gusts and giant waves: bad weather described as a “megastorm” left four dead and left around two million people without power in Russia, annexed Crimea and other occupied parts of Ukraine, according to authorities and media on Monday.
Dubbed “storm of the century” and “mega-storm” by the Russian media, the violent bad weather, underway since Sunday, has most severely affected Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed in 2014, the south of Russia and the partially occupied regions. from Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson in Ukraine, according to the Russian Energy Ministry.
The body of a man was found in Sochi, a popular seaside resort, according to regional authorities, who recommended residents 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, which connects Crimea to Russia, and a body was found in Novorossiysk, in the Krasnodar region, according to Russian agencies.
400,000 people without power in occupied Crimea
At 07:00 GMT on Monday, “around 1.9 million people” were without electricity in these regions “due to unfavorable weather conditions”, the Russian Energy Ministry said in a statement.
In Crimea alone, this storm left 400,000 people without electricity, 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 regions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
In the Krasnodar region, which is home to the seaside resorts of Sochi and Anapa, hundreds of trees as well as numerous metal structures equipping the beaches were uprooted by the wind during the night from Sunday to Monday, causing injuries. , indicated 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 8 meters from above.
“Armageddon”
In Crimea, the Black Sea has overflowed onto highways, with Russian television broadcasting images of waves crashing over cars trying to drive through the water.
The governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksionov, declared a state of emergency and announced Monday a day off due to bad weather in this peninsula annexed in 2014.
“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 the Russian television 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.
Neighboring Ukraine is also facing severe weather, with a snowstorm leaving more than 2,000 towns without power and blocking highways.
