Putin orders probe into flood deaths
Russian president Vladimir Putin. File photo.
Image by: RIA NOVOSTI / REUTERS
Image by: RIA NOVOSTI / REUTERS
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered investigators to find out if enough had been done to prevent 144 people being killed in floods in southern Russia.
He flew to the region to deal with the first big disaster of his new presidency.
Putin, criticised for a slow reaction to disasters earlier in his career, said after visiting the flood zone on Saturday that money would be put aside for building new homes for victims of the worst flooding in decades in Krasnodar, a relatively rich region with agriculture and tourism industries.
An Interior Ministry crisis centre said 144 people had been killed in the flooding after two months of average rainfall in a few hours on Friday night. Most of the dead were drowned, many of them elderly people caught as they slept. - Reuters
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