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STORY: Russia's southern Ural region and northern Kazakhstan have been grappling with the worst flooding in living memory after very large snow falls melted swiftly amid heavy rain over land already waterlogged before winter.

That has swelled the tributaries of the Ob, which rises in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia and empties into the Arctic Ocean, beyond bursting point, leaving some cities in Russia and Kazakhstan under water.

A Reuters journalist said several districts of the northern Kazakh city of Petropavlovsk were completely flooded. The city which sits on the Ishim River, a tributary of the Irtysh, the chief tributary of the Ob.

Almost 1,000 houses have been flooded in the North Kazakhstan region of which Petropavlovsk is the center, and over 5,000 people have been evacuated, local officials said. There have been interruptions in power and water supply in the city.