Lena River Floods
May 28, 2001
Provided by: NASA/GSFC
Summary authors & editors: Jim Foster
The above Landsat-7 image, taken on May 16, shows the flooded Lena River in the vicinity of Lensk (near the loop at the top of the river bend - top left part of image). A very cold winter and rapid snow melt in recent weeks has resulted in severe flooding that has crippled cities and towns in the Lena River valley. Quite a bit of snow still remains in mountainous areas to the south of the river. Yakutsk (off the image), the regions largest city, having a population of over 200,000 people, has been largely spared of serious flooding, but thousands of people in Lensk (upriver from Yakutsk, further south) are homeless and 1,800 homes destroyed. Though spring flooding happens every year on many Siberian rivers, this year's flooding is a 1 in a 100 year event.
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