Three dead as storm hits Crimea and Russia’s Black Sea coast

On Monday, severe storms along the coast of the Black Sea in Russia and Crimea resulted in the deaths of three people and forced the evacuation of hundreds.

According to the state-run news agency TASS, one person had been slain in the resort city of Sochi, another person had been killed on the Russian-held peninsula of Crimea, and a third person had been killed onboard a vessel in the Kerch Strait, which divides Crimea from the Russian mainland.

Since Friday, violent storms have been raging in the Black Sea. A video uploaded on the internet demonstrated enormous waves crashing over the seashore in Sochi, dragging automobiles in their path. The streets of the town of Yevpatoriya on the Crimean peninsula were inundated.

Crimea and Sevastopol, both of which Russia captured and unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, have both proclaimed states of emergency, and the declarations were made by governors who Russia placed.

The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia reported successfully rescuing more than 350 people.

According to Russia’s Energy Ministry, severe weather had caused around 1.9 million people in the southern Russian provinces of Dagestan, Krasnodar, and Rostov, as well as Crimea and the parts of Ukraine that Russia unilaterally announced it had annexed last year, to be without energy on Monday morning.

Because of the weather, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and the Transneft state oil pipeline firm in Russia have decided to cease loadings in the Russian port of Novorossiysk.