Putin orders probe after floods claim 150 lives

Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered investigators to find out if enough was done to prevent 150 people being killed in floods in southern Russia after flying to the region to deal with the first big disaster of his new presidency.

Putin, who was criticised for his slow reaction to disasters earlier in his career, said after visiting the flood zone at the weekend that money would be put aside for building new homes for victims of the worst flooding in decades in Krasnodar, a relatively rich region with agriculture and tourism industries.

An Interior Ministry crisis centre said 144 people had been killed in the flooding after two months’ average rainfall fell in a few hours on Friday night. Most of the dead were drowned, many of them elderly people caught unawares as they slept.