Several Russian regions were immediately enveloped in smog from forest fires. An emergency regime was introduced today in Mordovia and the Nizhny Novgorod region, where the city of Sarov is surrounded by flames. In the Sverdlovsk Region, more than 1,700 hectares have been on fire. One of the outbreaks flared up close to the federal highway Yekaterinburg - Perm, traffic was stopped. And near Pervouralsk, summer residents and guests of sanatoriums were evacuated. In the Chelyabinsk region, the fire reached the outskirts of Miass. Summer cottages are on fire, the highway is blocked. In Tyumen, the level of air pollution has exceeded critical levels. Visibility on the roads has fallen, there is nothing to breathe in the city.
And in the mountains of Dagestan, where after heavy rainstorms mudflows descended, they are looking for the missing - two tourists and three local residents.
- I have never seen this in my life! What is it? What a nightmare!
Mudflows in mountainous areas carry away cars, erode walls of houses, roads and lock tourists in gorges. More than 30 people from different cities were cut off by water in the Karadakh gorge. Two of them are missing. It is impossible to find those carried away in the dark. The rescue operation continues during daylight hours. Volunteers are helping - local residents. They were the first to come running to help and did everything possible before the arrival of the Ministry of Emergencies.
“We arrived there, brother Ali saw how a man was being carried away. He said that there were still 20-25 people there. There was no one to wait, so we decided to move upward ourselves. We found two groups there,” says local resident Jamal Akhmetov.
Karadakh gorge. A beautiful place, but in bad weather it can become a deadly trap. Old-timers say that from childhood they were told that even at the slightest cloud it is not worth getting in here. Even now it is raining here and it's time to leave.
Ksenia Martynova says that the weather began to deteriorate during a hike to the Karadakh gorge. Her husband is among the missing, but managed to save the children.
"The husband crossed with the youngest son along the river to the other side and managed to pass him on to our friend. And the eldest son's hand slipped out. The guys intercepted him there. And then all three of them were carried forward along the river," says Ksenia.
The mudflow, according to eyewitnesses, burst into the gorge so quickly that people barely had time to hide. “It just started to rain and we were washed away,” says Elena Ulanova.
Whether the incident could have been prevented is now being investigated by the prosecutor's office. The fact that the tourists did not have a guide is only one of the possible reasons for the emergency. Still, mudflows were too powerful. Three more people from among the local residents disappeared in the Levashinsky district: a mother and son from the village of Khadzhalmakhi, and a man was carried away to Kuppa right with a truck. This is all that remains of the car.
The search for the missing continues. The main thing is that they are not disturbed by bad weather. Rains are predicted to continue for several more days.