Death toll in southern Russian flooding climbs to 93 victims

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia -- The death toll from flooding in southern Russia climbed to 93 on Saturday, emergency officials said, and President Vladimir Putin took local authorities to task for not doing more to help victims.

The floods have forced thousands to flee their homes and caused more than $385 million in damage. On Friday, the Russian president toured the flood-ravaged region.

"We have visited the camp set up by the emergency situations workers, the best one, I was told," Putin said on RTR television Saturday.

"If this was the best one, I wonder how people live in other camps," Putin said. "Bad, everything is very bad, I haven't seen anything good at all."

Charges of negligence were being considered against officials in the Karachayevo-Cherkessia region, the Kochubeevsky district, the city of Nevinomyssk and in the Uspensky district in the Stavropol region, Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said Saturday. Officials had begun a probe.

Fridinsky said some local officials had failed to inform people of the impending flood or take urgent measures. He also said the warning system in a number of districts did not work "and in some places it had been simply destroyed."

The newspaper Izvestia reported Saturday that two local officials in Stavropol had already been charged.

Putin said he saw victims sitting in the camps naked and barefoot, sleeping in tents erected in mud. "We must do everything for them to have food and drinking water and a little money."

Putin said poor preparation by local authorities had significantly increased the region's misery.

"I've said good things about the rescuers" from the army and the Ministry for Emergency Situations. "Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the local powers, the regional powers, and to a certain extent, about federal powers."

"If things had been put in place earlier, maybe the damage would have been minimized and the victims would have been fewer. The system of notification practically didn't exist," the president said.