Flooding Kills 17, Submerges Railway in Soviet Far East
Ten days of floods in the Soviet Far East have submerged part of the Trans-Siberian railway, flooded fertile land and killed 17 people, the official Soviet news agency Tass said Friday.
It said preliminary data put damage caused by the flood at more than 400 million rubles, about $650 million at the official exchange rate.
Soldiers are fighting to save the city of Dalnerechensk, one of the worst hit spots, where an embankment had failed to withstand the pressure of water. Tass said it had been decided to blow up a section of railway to channel the water into a small valley where it would not threaten homes and farms.
A state of emergency was declared Monday in the Far East after 18 districts were inundated with water, leaving thousands of cattle stranded, towns without drinking water and hundreds of miles of power lines down.
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