Nearly 12,000 houses have been flooded in a Russian region bordering Kazakhstan as water levels in the Ural River keep rising and threatening more deluge, authorities said Thursday. The floods sparked evacuations of thousands in the Orenburg region, located some 1,200 kilometers , southeast of the capital of Moscow after a dam on the river burst last week under the pressure of surging waters. Local authorities have declared a state of emergency in the region.
A total of 7,800 people have been evacuated from the flooded areas so far, he added. The overall damage from the floods is estimated to exceed 40 billion rubles . Further east along the Kazakhstan border, authorities in the regions of Kurgan and Tyumen are also preparing for possible floods as water levels rise in local rivers.