Deluge hits Siberia's largest city, causing 'waterfall' near city's railway station
Tornado
- first since 1954 - signals freak downpour, opening craters in roads
which swallow up cars.
By The
Siberian Times reporter
19
July 2016
Floods
and tornadoes hit Siberia's largest city. Picture: AST54
The
sudden storm caused flooding in Novosibirsk's metro stations, city
centre streets and shops - while the water opened cracks in asphalt
large enough for vehicles to fall into. A waterfall was spotted close
to the central railway station, a major stopover on the
Trans-Siberian Railway.
'New
tourist attraction,' quipped one online joker.
A
rare tornado seen over Burmaistrovo village - the first in
Novosibirsk region in more than 60 years, but the third in Siberia in
two weeks - preceded the flash flooding in and around the city with a
1.51 population, the third largest in Russia. No injuries were
reported from this rare phenomenon.
A key compounding factor were malfunctioning or non-existent storm drainage ducts. Picture: AST54, NGS
The
press secretary of Western Siberian Weather Centre Renad Yagudin
said: 'We had a couple of really strong tornadoes in July 1954.
'One
picked up a milkmaid and a tractor with a driver inside.
Miraculously, the same tornado carefully 'put' them down so that they
were not even hurt.'
In
the storm that followed Monday's tornado, cars fell into
suddenly-opening gaping crevices close to Sibirsky Mall in
Koshurnikova Street and Zhilina Street in the central district of
Novosibirsk, and holes also appeared on the outskirts of the city.
Freak July weather in Siberia. Pictures here and below: AST54, NGS
A
key compounding factor were malfunctioning or non-existent storm
drainage ducts. '16 mm of precipitation occurred in 36 minutes at
Uchebnaya meteorological station,' said Renad Yagudin, press
secretary of the West Siberian Hydrometeocentre. 'Obviously, this is
a very strong rain'.
Several
meteorological stations in Tomsk and Kemerovo regions reported the
strongest rains in 30 years.
Experts
disagree as to whether global warming is a cause of what many locals
see as significant weather changes.
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