At least four people are missing along southern Russia’s Black Sea coast, which has been battered by heavy rains and flash floods since the weekend, news agencies reported Wednesday.
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry’s Krasnodar region branch said it was organizing a search and rescue operation where local authorities issued a state of emergency earlier in the day, according to Interfax.
Shot, a Telegram channel with purported links to Russia’s security services, said the four missing people included three teenage siblings whose house was swept away by flood currents in the early morning, while the fourth was a man trapped in his car by rushing water.
Sergei Boyko, the head of the Krasnodar region’s Tuapsinsky district, introduced a state of emergency across four resort towns, as he urged tourists and residents to heed the local storm warning and remain indoors.
Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said nearly 250 households were flooded across 10 towns and villages in the Krasnodar region. Residents of at least one village were evacuated to temporary shelters, it added.
Video published since at least early Sunday showed flooded households and piled up vehicles in areas including Sochi, Russia’s biggest resort.