Chisinau - High water struck the renegade Moldovan province Transnistria on Monday, overflowing a critical dam and forcing the evacuation of much of the pseudo-state's unofficial capital. Russian-speaking Transnistria seceded from Romanian-speaking Moldova after a civil war ending in 1992. No country has recognised Transnistria, despite the region's effective independence. Water levels in the Dniestr River, caused by heavy rains upstream last week, had topped a flood control dam near Transistria's largest city Tiraspol, the Interfax news agency reported. More than 90 per cent of the central streets of the city, and the entire Dniestr bank throughout Tiraspol, were under water, forcing the evacuation of residents. Witnesses described many city districts as "entirely flooded." Channel 5 television images showed water reaching to the first storey windowsills of some Tiraspol residences and offices. The high waters temporarily knocked Radio Tiraspol, the Transistria regime's main means of communicating with residents of the region, off the air for most of the night Sunday through Monday morning. Tiraspol's partial evacuation reportedly was proceeding smoothly, assisted by the as-yet relatively low (10 to 15 centimetres on average) quantity of water standing throughout the town, officials of the Transnistria civil defence staff said. "The dam hasn't failed completely ... (but) at one point the water has broken through the embankment," an official told reporters. "We are shoring up the damage."More than 1,500 men and 160 pieces of earth-moving equipment, including mobilised army units, were working furiously to repair the Tiraspol dam and control the flooding. Officials nonetheless were predicting substantial flooding in city districts, particularly adjacent to the Dniestr, as water continued to rise. Tiraspol's authoritarian government declared a state of emergency effective until August 9, and banned automobile traffic within city limits until further notice. Less substantial flooding was reported in the Tiraspol cities Dubossari and Bendery. Heavy rains and massive flooding struck Ukraine's Carpathian Mountain and adjacent regions last week, killing 36 persons and causing as much as one billion dollars in damage, according to the latest Ukrainian government estimates. Transnistria, located along the Dniestr River downstream from the Carpathian region, has seen rising water since then. The high tide was expected in Tiraspol on Monday or Tuesday, according to the report. Moldova media on Sunday carried accusations by Moldovan officials charging that Ukraine, struggling to deal with chaos caused by the flooding, has passed on problems to downstream Moldova by allowing substantially more water through its dams and water control system than allowed by treaty between the two former Soviet republics. Ukraine's government had not responded to the charge by Monday morning. Regional Ukrainian officials last week appeared to give grounds to the Moldovan claim, stating openly that floodways had been opening along the Dniestr's length in order to prevent failure of Ukrainian dams on the river.
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