But Deputy Environmental Minister Nikolai Mikheyev doubted the reports. The week of flooding was blamed on ice jams clogging the Lena River and causing it to overflow. By the time floodwaters passed the region's biggest city, Yakutsk, on Wednesday, towns and villages along the powerful waterway had been ravaged, six people have been killed and two reported missing. About 10,000 homes or apartments were destroyed. Reservoirs holding gasoline, fuel oil and diesel fuel were also damaged.
Siberian rivers flood regularly because they flow from south to north.
The snow that melts in the south, where the spring thaw begins earlier, runs into ice in the still-frozen north. This year an unusually frigid winter and a warm spring combined to create a deluge, the likes of which authorities haven't seen in Siberia for a century. Copyright 2001, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Please read it.