Reuters
People row a boat through a flooded residential area in Orenburg, Russia, April 12.
The flooding in the Russian city of Orenburg, the administrative center of the Orenburg region in the southern Urals, will reach its peak on Friday, said First Deputy Head of the city Alexey Kudinov.
The water levels in the Ural River in the city had continued to rise overnight and reached 1.12 meters, Kudinov said in an interview on Friday morning.
"According to the Hydrometeorological Center of Russia, the flooding will reach its peak today, followed by a two-day plateau," he said. "After that, the water will start to recede."
The Orenburg region is the worst-hit area in Russia's spring flood. As of 8am local time Friday, 11,773 residential buildings were flooded in the region and more than 10,700 people were evacuated from the flooded areas, the regional government said on Telegram.
In some of the worst flooding in decades due to a continuous rise in daily average temperatures, snowmelt and rivers thawing, Russia's western Siberia, the Volga region and the Central Federal District have been flooded.