Record floods threaten far eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk

Russians in the Far East on Friday scrambled to contain record floods that have affected more than 50,000 people and threatened to paralyse one of the region’s biggest cities.

Heavy rains pounding the Far East over the past weeks swelled local rivers, with floodwaters wreaking havoc in Khabarovsk, a city of nearly 600,000 that sits at the confluence of the Amur and Ussury rivers near a Chinese border.

The military were deployed to help hurriedly erect defences against the floodwaters, which halted transport in some areas of the city and reached high-rise residential buildings.

Amid fresh concerns that the Russian government was ill-prepared to handle natural disasters, President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said he would soon personally inspect some of the affected areas.

The government will dispatch 10 ministers headed by powerful deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov to the Far East to oversee relief efforts, government spokeswoman Natalia Timakova said.

On Friday, the level of Amur river, which serves as a natural border with China where it is known as the Heilongjiang river, has risen to 718 centimetres, according to Russian state weather service Rosgidromet.