Alarming Satellite GIFs Show Russia’s Extreme Flooding
The Russia-China border is practically a lake now.
LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
Since mid-August, floods have plagued the Amur River region, the dividing line between eastern Russia and China. Chinese state media have called it the worst flooding in a century. Here’s what the flooding has looked like near Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a city of 500,000 in Russia’s far eastern region.
The first false-color image above, from NASA’s Aqua satellite, taken on August 17 of last year, shows a normal water level for the season. The second, filled with inky splotches of water, shows the flood levels on September 8 of this year. The water levels a little downstream in Khabarovsk, right next to the Chinese border, have risen to a record 8.1 meters high.
Here’s what the flooding looked like on the Songhua River, a Chinese tributary of the Amur, on August 30 of this year compared with the same day last year:
LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
A few days ago, Russian news agency RIA Novosti predicted the waters in Komsomolsk-on-Amur would peak at 9.8 meters this week. Thousands have been evacuated from their homes in Russia, and as many as 5 million have been affected in China.