Snowstorm kills 8 people in Ukraine and Russia, leaves hundreds of cities without power

A snowstorm in Ukraine has killed 10 people, leaving power outages due to icy winds and storms that have raged across the country since Sunday, Interior Minister Ihor Klimenko said. It was announced on Tuesday. and a closed road.
Southern Ukraine, especially the Black Sea region of Odessa, was the hardest hit. Cars and buses slid off icy roads into fields, and police battled strong winds to tow them.

“Due to worsening weather conditions, 10 people died in Odessa, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv and Kiev regions,” Klimenko wrote on the Telegram app.

Russia says hurricane-force winds and severe flooding are leaving around 1.9 million people without power in the south, including parts of Ukraine illegally annexed by Moscow.

According to Russia’s Ministry of Energy, the hardest hit regions are Dagestan, Krasnodar, Rostov, and the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhia and Crimea.

Local media reported at least four deaths from the storm.

Ukraine says 2,019 villages and towns are without power after a snowstorm. Large waves were observed at the port of Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea, destroying the city’s coastline. Footage has also been released showing the three-story building collapsing.

Near the town of Anapa, also on the Russian Black Sea coast, a cargo vessel with 21 crew has run aground.

In the capital Moscow, authorities had to deploy specialist machinery to clear the streets after heavy snowfall.

In Ukraine’s southern Crimea peninsula – illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 – Moscow-installed officials reported flooding in coastal areas. Fallen trees and other debris were seen on the streets of several towns.

About 800 exotic fish died when a historic museum-aquarium was destroyed by sea flooding in the port of Sevastopol, the museum director was quoted as saying by a local media outlet.

A state of emergency is now in place in several municipalities in Crimea.

Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, said the storm “washed away trenches in occupied Crimea that the Russian army dug out on the beaches”.

The Russian military has not commented on this claim.

Ukraine’s emergency service DSNS announced that 16 regions of the country were hit by snowstorms and strong winds.

In the worst-hit Odessa region in the southwest, 48 people, including children, were evacuated from trapped vehicles.

According to rescue teams, up to 840 vehicles had to be towed away as snowdrifts exceeded 2 meters in height in some places. At least 1,370 trucks are currently stranded.

At least six people suffered from hypothermia. Currently, 14 expressways are closed. The Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine has also been severely affected.

Ukraine’s border service announced that two border crossings with Moldova in the Odessa region reopened on Sunday after temporary closure, but traffic conditions remain difficult.

On Sunday, the mayor of the Black Sea port of Odessa urged residents to stay at home, and authorities warned that water supplies would be disrupted by a power outage that stopped pumps.

Eight people suffered hypothermia and five others were injured in the Odessa area after falling trees, emergency services said.

The Odessa boiler factory, where a 100-meter-long pipe broke and fell on Sunday night, resumed operations on Monday night.

“Heating is currently in test mode for his 120,000 customers in Odessa. People’s homes must be warm until the morning,” the region’s governor Ole Kipel said on Telegram.

Report by Dan Pereshuk, Yulia Disa and Alexander Tanas in Chisinau. Editing: Tom Balmforth, Bernadette Baum, William McLean, Tomasz Janowski,