At least one person died and ten have been injured in the disaster, local officials say
© Sputnik / Maks Vetrov
A massive storm that hit the Crimean Peninsula on Monday night turned out to be the most powerful one in its recorded history, Roman Vilfand, a scientific adviser to the Meteorological Office, told RIA Novosti.
The last time a storm nearly that bad occurred, to our knowledge, was more than 160 years ago, Vilfand added.
The meteorologist said that wind speed in Monday’s storm reached 40 meters per second (144 kilometers per hour). At least one person has died and ten people have sustained various injuries in the disaster, according to regional authorities.
A total of 400,000 Crimean residents were left without electricity in the wake of the storm and several local municipal districts declared a state of emergency.
Videos shared on social media showed huge tsunami-like waves hitting the Crimean shores and embankments of local cities, including Sevastopol.
Some local residents also filmed their houses being flooded with sea water rushing into the rooms through their windows. Some highways were also flooded, while other areas on the peninsula also faced snowstorms.
Crimea was not the only area to be hit by the disaster. In Russia’s Krasnodar Region, which includes a long stretch of the eastern Black Sea coast, the storm damaged buildings and led to the flooding, videos taken by locals and tourists show.
Some footage captured massive waves hitting a power line near a railway. In another clip taken from a moving train, a railway line running close to the shore collapses because of the storm. Around 50 trains were delayed due to damage sustained by the line, RIA Novosti reported.
Other videos showed a one-story building collapsing due to gusty winds in the Russian southern city of Sochi. The city’s coastal district of Adler witnessed huge waves rushing to the shore and flooding the area in a tsunami-like incident.
At least one person died in the city because of the storm, which has largely moved on from the area, Russian media reported.
