Power cut for half a million people and four die as worst storm in 100 years hits Crimea

More than half a million people are without power and four died after the worst storm in a 100 years hit the Crimean peninsula on November 26.

Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the peninsula's Russian governor said 498,000 people in Crimea have been left without electricity due to the extreme weather, citing data from the Russian company Krymenergo, Ukrainska Pravda reports.

Nine-metre-high waves crashed against the coast, Astra reported, sweeping Russian military defences away and plunging towns and villages into darkness as the power system failed, TASS reported. Houses facing the water in Simferopol were evacuated and hurricane winds in Sevastopol uprooted trees as well as tearing down billboards. Around 500,000 Crimea residents are facing power outages due to the stormy weather, Kryuchkov wrote on Telegram.

"One person is missing and four others have been injured in a slew of hazardous weather events," Russia’s Emergency Ministry said, adding that its employees had been busy evacuating people from flooded houses all night.

Greek meteorologists have named the storm “Bettina” and it is the latest in a string of extreme weather events to hit the Mediterranean basin this year. It follows on from tropical storm Daniel that killed around 10,000 people in Libya earlier this year after it burst a dam and washed through the town of Derna in the middle of the night.

The latest reports from the Russian Health Ministry say seven more people have been injured in the most recent bout of bad weather in Yevpatoriya in northwestern Crimea, of whom two have been hospitalised.

The Crimean authorities issued a storm warning at the weekend, which could last until November 27m, and officially announced a day off work for the duration of the storm.

"Due to the stormy weather, problems with electricity supplies were reported from the villages of Kotelnikovo, Poltavka, Krasnoznamenka, Petrovka, Voskhod, Muskatnoye, Pyatikhatka, Novopokrovka, Klepino and Zarechnoye," Vasily Grabovan, head of the Krasnogvardeisky district administration, wrote on his Telegram channel.

 Some 200 people were evacuated from their homes in Yevpatoria. The head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov said that a crisis centre had been set up due to deterioration of weather conditions, TASS reports.

A gale warning was issued in Crimea for November 25-27 due to heavy rains and stormy winds of up to 40 metres a second.

The storm was affecting other cities along the coast including Odesa, Ukraine’s busiest port. The storm is expected to reach the capital today on November 27, where the wind is predicted to increase to 17-22 m/s and bring heavy snowfalls.