Over 400,000 people in Crimea are left without power today, after hurricane force winds and heavy rains battered the Russian-annexed peninsula over the weekend.
A local official said a man on the peninsula’s southern coast was killed, according to early reports, while wind speeds of over 140 kilometres per hour (about 90 mph) were recorded in some places.
Crimean lawmaker Vladimir Konstantinov said that the peninsula had experienced an “armageddon” like scenario.
Parts of the coastal highway linking the cities of Yevpatoria and Simferopol were closed due to flooding, and ferry services from Crimea’s largest city of Sevastopol were suspended.
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The city’s Moscow-installed governor said, about 500 marine animals in Sevastopol’s aquarium were killed during the storm, which flooded one of its floors. The Ukrainian mainland and southern Russia were also affected.
Kyiv’s government said train traffic on Russia’s Black Sea coast was disrupted after rail tracks fell into the sea, while oil loading at the port of Novorossiysk was suspended.
More than two thousand towns and villages on the Ukrainian mainland were also left without power due to bad weather today. Ukraine’s energy grid has been targeted systematically by Russian forces since Moscow’s assault began last year, and officials have warned strikes could intensify over winter.
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