Bombers Break Ice; River Flows in Siberia

Russian warplanes gave the submerged town of Lensk hope Friday, blasting a massive ice floe that had caused eastern Siberia’s worst floods in a century and forced thousands of people to flee.

Emergency Situations Ministry officials said that bombing runs Thursday had weakened the ice and that a further run Friday by Sukhoi Su-24 bombers, enjoying a rare operational sortie, had achieved the breakthrough.

But the outflow of pent-up water was threatening the larger town of Yakutsk, downstream on the Lena River, the Interfax news agency said, quoting officials at the Emergency Situations Ministry.

An exceptionally harsh winter in eastern Siberia caused a massive ice floe to form on the Lena about 50 miles east of Lensk, leading to a buildup of meltwater after the spring thaw that triggered the flooding.

“We managed to destroy one blockage and then a second, and [later] . . . we managed to destroy the last one,” Emergency Situations Minister Sergei K. Shoigu told state-run RTR television.

“Now there is an intense outflow of water” and the water level was dropping, Shoigu said by telephone from Lensk, where he was directing operations.

“Unfortunately, homes that were swept off their foundations are being carried off by the flow and are floating away,” he added.

Prime Minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov told a Cabinet meeting that more than 400 traditional-style wooden homes had been swept away by flood waters and that another 1,700 had been damaged.

More than 80 tons of explosives were used against the ice floe Thursday, Kasyanov said in comments broadcast on RTR.