Tyumen, one of Siberia’s largest cities, made national headlines in July when flooding along the local Tura River began to resemble scenes of a biblical plague.
Unusually heavy rain fell nearly every day in June and July, pushing the river to 8.96 meters (29.4 feet) by early August, just below the 9.15-meter record set in 1979. As the water rose, local residents complained of an unbearable stench coming from the river and reported seeing scores of dead fish washed ashore.
“I suffocate every night and have to shut the windows,” Tyumen resident Svetlana told the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty news agency.
“[Once] I ran out to the street at 1 a.m. looking for a place to breathe. I live across the river and the smell here is worse than anywhere else [in the city],” she told the outlet in July, when daytime temperatures in Tyumen soared to a record-breaking 30 degrees Celsius. “I found some air downtown, away from the river, where I sat on a bench and walked to catch my breath.”
A worker involved in cleanup efforts along the banks of the Tura River in the city of Tyumen.
