Vladimir Putin ordered investigators to find out if enough was done to prevent 150 people being killed in floods in southern Russia after flying to the region to deal with the first big disaster of his new presidency.
Mr Putin, who was criticised for his slow reaction to disasters earlier in his career, said after visiting the flood zone late yesterday 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' average rainfall fell in a few hours on Friday night.
Most of the dead were drowned, many of them elderly people caught unawares as they slept.
Police said survivors climbed into trees and onto roofs to stay above the waters, which flooded entire ground floors of some buildings and created driving torrents in some streets.
Rains continued in some coastal areas today, including the hardest hit town, Krymsk, where 139 people had been found dead out of a total toll of 150, Russian newswires reported.