Movement of meltwater around Astana as observed from two satellites

Astana, Kazakhstan's capital was threatened with spring floods this year. The situation in Akmola Oblast, the area around Astana, was being closely monitored from space. Experts of Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary space company provided data from the Kazakh remote sensing satellites of medium and high resolution KazEOSat-1 and KazEOSat-2, Tengrinews reports.

The pictures shows the flood situation in Akmola Oblast on April 18 and 19. There were dense clouds over the territory, and the survey had to combine the visible and heat ranges. The survey improved visualization and measurement on the territory. 

Experts of Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary made such pictures daily at the request of Kazakhstan's emergency services. Pictures taken in the morning were ready in the evening the same day.

According to the press service of the akimat of Akmola Oblast, 147 people were temporarily resettled from the village of Aganas before arrival of the flood. 

The photo below shows flooding of Romanovka village.

Water poured over the bank of Nura-Ishim channel.

For the dam near the village of Taytobe, 830 bags of soil and 4,000 sandbags were used. About 8,000 cubic meters of meltwater were pumped out.

This photo shows the area south of Kosshy village. It is evident that the water is held away by the dam. If the water had started flowing over the dam at some point, it would have reached Astana. According to Akmola Oblast Akimat, eight vehicles were work day and night south to the village to strengthen the dam. 1,050 bags were stretched over 600 meters.

The water came into the village of Rozhdestvenka.

950 sacks of inert materials were stretched over 1200 meters near the village of Kyzylzhar to strengthen the dam.

According to the akimat of Akmola Oblast, 11 villages had round-the-clock anti-flooding efforts undertaken in Tselinograd District. In all the villages, which were at risk, the existing roads and dams were strengthened. In some places, new dams were constructed. Overall, 523 people from the District were moved to safe places because of the flood. The Governor's office stressed that there were no casualties. In addition, it appears that there were no deaths of livestock in the area.

On 20 April, 1,647 cubic meters of water per second were passing through Preobrazhensky hydroelectric complex on the Nura river, and the river finally started losing its level - in 12 hours it went down ten centimeters.

Deputy Mayor of the District Alma Aytkuzhinova said that preventive measures were taken in all the risk zones, particularly in the uplands. District administration, police and doctors were all on high alert in the risk zones. 

In the village of Rakhymzhan Koshkarbayev, 1000 bags of sand were put in place alongside the road to create a 1 kilometre long and 1 meter-high barrier with the help of six vehicles.

26 people were evacuated from Shnet village. The nearby 2.5km 1.7 meter high dam was strengthened.

In the village of Akmol 310 tons of inert materials was dumped and diked around apartment houses using 10 vehicles.

By Dinara Urazova