Due to severe storms and flooding brought on by hurricane-force winds and torrential rains, about two million people in Russia and the occupied Ukraine lost power on Monday.
Massive waves tore across the Black Sea coast of Russia, as social media footage revealed, with wind gusts reaching over 140 km/h (about 90 miles per hour) in certain locations.
According to local media, the storm claimed the lives of at least four people.According to official media, a sailor was murdered in the Kerch Strait, which separates Russia and Crimea, and two bodies were discovered in the southern Krasnodar region of Russia.
One man on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula’s southern coast was also killed, according to Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the region’s Russian-installed governor, Sergei Aksyonov.
“The man went out to look at the waves and, unfortunately, tragically died,” he said.
According to Russia’s energy ministry, “about 1.9 million people” were impacted by blackouts in the occupied Ukrainian territory of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea, as well as the southern Russian provinces of Dagestan, Krasnodar, and Rostov.
Rescuers in one of the worst-hit areas, Crimea, anticipated to restore electricity within the next two days, according to Aksyonov.
Crimean lawmaker Vladimir Konstantinov said on state television that the peninsula had experienced an “armageddon”-like scenario.
“Old-timers can’t remember this kind of wind and waves,” he said.
