A heavy downpour in the Krasnodar region flooded several towns, with Krymsk and the surrounding area being the worst hit. The flood destroyed over a thousand houses, and several thousand others were badly damaged. Aid to people affected by the flood was provided by EMERCOM  (Ministry of the Russian Federation for Affairs of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters), the army and volunteers from various cities, including volunteers from NA Russia.

Our five-person team of volunteers started its work after the worst of the debris had already been cleared away, at which point the main goal was to distribute humanitarian aid to people living in the region. We worked in the village of Nizhnebakanskaya, near Krymsk, the area worst affected by the flood. Our main work consisted of clearing debris from the inside and outside of private residences, where residents could not cope on their own, and helping to sort and distribute humanitarian aid.

The skills that we had acquired during  previous volunteering expeditions with NA Russia (to Elbrus, Talashkino and Ivangorod), including many ecological works, proved to be of great use to us in clearing the debris. In some places we had to organize the supply of electrical power, and to demolish metal fences that the flood waters had crumpled like paper.  Other work included pulling down destroyed buildings and removing silt and mud from residences and taking it to the road, where dump trucks collected all the debris.

As a result of the flood, many residents of Krymsk and the surrounding area were not only left homeless, but were also deprived of many of the basic necessities of life: clothes, food and water. For this reason, the distribution of humanitarian aid began almost immediately after the disaster. Heavy trucks arrived in the region, and their cargo was unloaded into temporary warehouses where it was sorted and then delivered by bus to the people who had suffered the most.

The supplies delivered first were water, food rations, folding beds, bed linens, pillows and items of personal hygiene. All these had to be quickly loaded onto buses that arrived at the warehouse and then, during the day, travelled from house to house delivering to the residents the things they needed the most. It should be pointed out that within a week after the disaster this work was already well organized thanks to the efforts of the local administration and volunteers who came from all over the country., This, even though in the first days after the disaster, there was much confusion.

Unfortunately, not everybody who wanted to help had an opportunity to go to Krymsk. Many of those who couldn’t go provided financial aid – the money was deposited into a relief fund for victims of the flood.