Man-Made Soviet Sea Causes Extensive Damage

MOSCOW —  Flooding caused by a man-made sea in southern Russia has ruined 870,000 acres of prime agricultural land and threatens more than half a million people’s homes, the government newspaper Izvestia said Friday.

Izvestia blamed experts at the Water Resources Ministry for allowing the water level in the Kuban Sea to rise, unmonitored, far higher than it should have.

It said draining only part of the land would cost $1.6 billion.

“In total, 600,000 to 700,000 people are at risk,” Izvestia said, describing the consequences of the latest in a series of man-made ecological disasters involving Soviet seas, lakes and rivers.

“One hundred and thirty settlements are suffering, the foundations of 27,000 blocks of flats have been flooded and 900 of them have collapsed,” it said. “Ninety miles of roads and nine bridges are out of action.”

The airport in Krasnodar, the local capital, was flooded and water had also reached other parts of the city, it said.

“Rural areas are suffering colossal damage. More than 870,000 acres of arable land on state and collective farms are submerged and crops have been washed away from 270,000 acres of them.”

Izvestia said the Kuban Sea, built 20 years ago near the Black Sea in the south of the Russian Federation, the largest Soviet republic, had been allowed to fill up with more water than foreseen in the original project.

The extra water in the sea was merging with underground water, forcing it upward and causing floods, Izvestia said.

Izvestia added that it would take years and lots of money to repair the damage done.