AMN/ WEB DESK
Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Bulgaria faced extreme winter storms on Monday, killing at least 10, and leaving 2 million people without electricity. 23 more including two children were left injured in Ukraine on Tuesday morning as the country was battered by severe storms. Called the ‘Storm of the Century’, the extreme weather has affected Russia’s Dagestan, Krasnodar and Rostov, as well as Donetsk, Crimea, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine. A state of emergency has been declared in several municipalities in Russia-controlled Crimea. Parts of Crimea’s coastal highway linking the cities of Yevpatoria and Simferopol were closed due to flooding and ferry services were suspended.
Among the casualties, five deaths and 15 injuries were reported in Odesa Oblast, one of the worst-hit regions of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the emergency services provided assistance to 2,498 people in the oblast, including 162 children.
Eight highways in the Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad oblasts remain closed, and traffic is restricted on sections of two roads in Odesa Oblast, according to Klymenko. A total of 1,530 stranded vehicles were towed. Some 411 settlements in 11 oblasts reportedly remain without power as of Tuesday morning.
A major energy project, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, announced yesterday that it was suspending its oil loading operations at the Novorossiysk seaport, located on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea in Russia, due to extremely unfavourable weather conditions with wind speed up to 86 kilometres per hour and waves up to eight metres high. Experts warn that more bad weather is on way with the expectation of snow and rain throughout Ukraine today.