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CNN Sunday Morning

Floods Kill 58 in Southern Russia

Aired August 11, 2002 - 11:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KRIS OSBORN, CNN ANCHOR: Now for the second time this summer, floods have hit with deadly results in Russia's Black Sea resort region. Now this time at least 58 people have been killed -- most of them just vacationers. And we have an update from CNN's Ryan Chilcote. He is live on the phone from Moscow.
Ryan, what is the situation right now? Of course, this has been a difficult situation.

RYAN CHILCOTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah -- good morning, Kris. Well, thanks to an amateur cameraman who actually stuck around to film the coming water (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on Thursday. I don't know if you can see that video there. But that water came from some mountain lakes and streams that had overflowed above these resort towns and beaches.

It came down on this area very quickly. It took many Russians that, as you said, were there on vacation and local residents with it.

Search and recovery operations are really just getting underway right now because the weather has improved. It began improving on Saturday.

So so far workers are just -- are getting going. They're recovered, as you said, 58 bodies so far. Many of the dead are women and children who just couldn't get out of the way in time.

The destruction in this area is really quite amazing -- nearly total. Along with the people it took cars, houses and bridges with it.

And the emergency workers are making their way through the debris as fast as possible but it's not easy going.

And they say that the search for the dead does not depend on them alone. They're saying that many of the missing may have been washed to sea and that it will be difficult to find them and that they'll just have to wait (UNINTELLIGIBLE) those can't find will wash back ashore. Somebody said that they think it might take as many as three to 10 days.

So obviously the death toll in this really tragic situation is going to continue to rise. Back to you, Kris.

OSBORN: Well, Ryan, as you were talking we were seeing pictures of cars just flooding through rivers in a town. I understand a lot of vehicles were swept into the sea. And then also I understand the flooding was accompanied by a violent tornado. Do you -- what about that?

CHILCOTE: Yeah -- it's just -- obviously it's not that often that we have an opportunity to see those kinds of pictures -- water moving that quickly. That water was moving very violently and it washed lots of vehicles into the sea and people.

And, like you said, there was a tornado happening at the same time -- so really two very unfortunate events hitting this area that had already been hit just two months before with massive flooding. So obviously they're hoping for better weather in the future in this area.

And right now they are focusing on cleaning up the area and trying to take account for all of the people that are in that area.

OSBORN: Absolutely.

Well, as you said, with weather improving, of course, the prospects for finding more people improve.

CHILCOTE: Yeah. It's just basically a very difficult time now. A lot of the people that were there were there on vacation so the local officials are going through the lists for the people in the local hotels to find out exactly who was there so they can figure out who to look for. It's going to be a long process.

And the death toll -- it will rise but they continue to -- they plan to continue to work every thing they can.

OSBORN: Absolutely. Ryan Chilcote -- thank you very much. Joining us live on the phone from Moscow describing the unfolding flooding. Indeed a difficult situation there.

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