Rescuers saved 872 people from deadly floods last weekend in Russia’s southern Krymsk district – and at least one cat, by proxy, Emergency Situations Minister Vladimir Puchkov said on Thursday.
He praised his colleagues for keeping the death toll in the disaster zone at 172 people, saying it could have been much higher, and dodged a barrage of inconvenient questions, including why exactly the mid-sized town of Krymsk was washed away at night last Saturday by a seven-meter flashflood, New Orleans-style.
“This is a very delicate question,” Puchkov said, when asked about the causes of the disaster.
“This is not the time to talk about it. The investigation is ongoing. Let’s focus on the clean-up for now,” he said with a polite smile.
Most questions he got were “delicate,” and all were “good,” even the one about his agency – which boasts sizeable budgets and much sophisticated rescue equipment – being so undersupplied this time that the arriving volunteers had to provide its staff with shovels and gumboots, according to Kommersant.
“We’re still looking for the volunteer who said that,” Puchkov joked in what sounded like a well-timed outburst of honesty.
He avoided speaking of the ministry’s resources, saying only that the federal government allotted 3.8 billion rubles ($116 million) for the cleanup and that eight convoys with humanitarian aid collected by volunteers were converging on Krymsk as he spoke.
The flood, which left 29,000 homeless last Saturday, was the first serious test for Puchkov, 53, who took over the top rescuer job in May from the near-legendary Sergei Shoigu, now Moscow Region Governor.
Judging by red-eyed appearance and occasional bouts of rambling, indicative of sleep deprivation, Puchkov took the task to heart.
The death toll could have been much higher if not for the rescuers’ efforts outside Krymsk, the minister said at the conference.
“Critics often have never been inside a disaster zone,” Puchkov said when asked about rumors of his agency’s poor performance.
“You should see just once how they, for example, rescue an old lady who is clinging to her cat like grim death despite them shouting at her to let it go because she is heavy enough as it is,” he said.
The animal survived the flood, Puchkov added.
A total of 10,600 rescuers, including emergency workers, police and medics, are currently working in the disaster zone, situated near and on the Black Sea coast of Russia’s Krasnodar region, Puchkov said. They are being helped by some 2,600 volunteers from all over the country, he said.
This is a serious increase from the 327 rescuers who were in the area when the flood hit, covering a zone with a population of almost 35,000, according to ministry figures.
The disaster, caused by torrential rains flooding the mountain rivers, caught many locals unaware, especially in Krymsk, which accounted for the most deaths and property damage.
Many residents claimed they never received any storm warning. District authorities said they launched a news ticker on local television and sent out mass text messages, but the power was out before the flood, shutting off TV sets, and the text messages mostly arrived too late and in truncated form.
Puchkov conceded that his subordinates in Krymsk district were “a weak link,” but refused to elaborate on their shortcomings, citing the ongoing probe into the incident.
However, he conceded an overhaul of the national disaster warning system is in the works.
