RUSSIA: More than 200 Russians were feared dead yesterday as a result of flash floods which engulfed war-torn Chechnya and neighbouring regions of the north Caucasus, driving some 75,000 people from their homes.
The official death toll rose yesterday following torrential rain which destroyed houses, roads, bridges and claimed the lives of at least 46 people, the emergencies ministry said.
However, reports that 180 people were missing, presumed dead, in the Stavropol territory bordering Chechnya caused fears that the failure of the authorities to respond quickly to unseasonal storms hitting the region on Thursday had caused the major tragedy.
Meanwhile, in a typical reaction to growing public alarm, the Kremlin moved yesterday to scapegoat regional officials in the north Caucasus for being inadequately prepared for the floods.
President Vladimir Putin's special envoy to south Russia, Mr Viktor Kazantsev, criticised the region's top officials for "wasting time in undertaking the emergency effort and inaction" in the worst affected areas, ITAR-TASS reported.
Police had yet to identify 12 of the bodies which were discovered in the Stavropol region, most of them in the foothills of the mountainous Yessentuky area, 120 mile from the Chechen border, said deputy police chief Col Andrei Aleksa.
A total of 33 people have so far been confirmed dead as a result of flooding in the Stavropol territory, he added.
Mr Putin summoned the Prime Minister, Mr Mikhail Kasyanov, and other senior ministers to the Kremlin on Saturday to discuss the emergency in Chechnya.
With tens of thousands of Chechens marooned in the waterlogged mountains, often clambering on to the roofs of shacks and cottages to escape the rising tide of floodwater, Mr Putin threw the full might of the Russian government behind the emergency effort.
He ordered the Defence Minister, Mr Sergei Ivanov, to use "all available means and forces" of the federal army to accelerate the rescue effort in Grozny and other regions of the breakaway republic.