Floodwaters continue to submerge large areas of southern Russia and northern Kazakhstan with officials predicting the worse is yet to come as a massive snowmelt amid unseasonably warm temperatures forced tens of thousands from their homes.
Dozens of towns, villages, and cities near the Ural River, Europe's third-longest, which burst its banks sending water cascading through the Russian city of Orenburg and the Kazakh city of Oral to the south.
The Orenburg regional administration said in a statement on April 10 that more than 7,700 residents and hundreds of domestic animals have been evacuated from districts affected by the floods, while about 13,000 private houses and about 15,000 households remain under water.
While the water level in the city of Orsk, where at least five people died during the floods after a local dam ruptured three times since last week, has started to go down, the region's government said the situation will remain complicated until at least April 25.
WATCH: Kazakh officials say nearly 100,000 people have now been evacuated due to flooding in the Central Asian country. Drone footage captured by RFE/RL's Kazakh Service captured the scale of the devastation to communities and property, while a social media video captured the joy of an evacuee reunited with his dog.
The Kremlin gave a starker outlook on the situation, saying it was "very, very tense" and likely to worsen.
"The water is continuing to rise. Large [amounts of] water are coming to new regions," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
In Kazakhstan, floods continue in several regions in the north that border Russia.
Satellite Imagery Reveals The Raging Floodwaters Inundating Russia
Officials said on April 10 that just over 96,000 people had been evacuated since the start of the floods last week, an increase of 10,000 from a day earlier.
Anger over the government's response has started to build, with residents of the Zhylyoi district in the western Kazakh region of Atyrau picketing the local government building in the town of Qulsary, demanding financial assistance to cover damages caused by the high waters.
The protesters said they are skeptical of the local government's decision to postpone mortgage payments for two months for residents whose houses have been damaged by the floods.
"The postponement of the mortgage payment for two months means we'll have to pay it back later with a higher interest rate. This is what exactly we faced during the COVID period. Forgive our home loans completely as we all are drowning not only in water but in debt, as well," one of the picketers, Zhanar Shudabaeva, told RFE/RL.
Local pensioner Quttybai Aiteshov told RFE/RL that although his house is debt free, he is afraid that due to the scale of the floods, he will be unable to repair his house since his monthly pension is too low to cover the costs.
The governor of the North Kazakhstan region, Ghauez Nurmukhambetov, issued a statement on April 10 warning that "a huge amount of water is coming" to the region via the Esil River and will reach the regional capital, Pertropavl, and dozens of local towns and villages in "a day or two."
Compounding the situation for those who are seeking shelter, cold weather is forecast in several regions for the rest of the week.
One resident said they were concerned over health conditions after the flood waters recede.
"We saw the bodies of buried people washed out of their graves. Many people who died of COVID were buried there. What about the tap water we use now? The local administration has not told us if it is safe to use the tap water. After the floods are over, will it be safe from a sanitary point of view to stay in the districts affected by the floods? I have a 2-month-old daughter," the young man said.
