Over 100 people were feared dead after severe storms at a Black Sea holiday region in southern Russia, Interfax news agency reported Saturday.
Two days of continuous rain has seen flash flooding affecting some 5,000 homes and leaving 22,000 people without power, DPA reported.
"No one here can remember such a catastrophe," local governor Alexander Tkachev said on local television. The death toll includes several elderly and at least one child, he said.
At least 92 people of the victims were thought to have drowned in flooding in the resort of Krasnodar, some 1,200 kilometres south of Moscow. Five people were electrocuted after lightning hit a power transformer.
The area is near Sochi, host of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
President Vladmir Putin has announced he will visit the affected region.
Railways and roads were washed away or made impassable by mud, while some 1,500 emergency workers were helping the rescue operation.
A state of emergency was declared in several cities in the region, and operations were severely hampered at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where at least two people died.
The floodwater had caught many people by surprise during the night, an emergency services spokesman said. Witnesses report seeing waves more than two metres high hitting houses.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the country's Emergency Situations Minister, Vladimir Puchkov, to take personal charge of rescue operations, and a transport aircraft and two helicopters have been sent to the region.
State television showed images of terrified residents seeking refuge in the higher floors of buildings or being rescued by raft from their flooded homes.
The police stepped up their presence to prevent looting, while many cars were swept away by the flash floods.
Experts have already put an initial estimated cost of the damage at 250 million euros (308 million dollars).
...