Catastrophic downpour in Odesa: city authorities to allocate ₴130 million to help victims

On Wednesday, 8 October, the Odesa City Council will hold an extraordinary session to allocate 130 million hryvnias to help those affected by the catastrophic downpour that occurred on 30 September.

This was reported by deputy Petro Obukhov from the faction «European Solidarity», according to NikVesti.

MP Petro Obukhov said that the families of the victims would receive 100,000 hryvnias each. Ten people died in the city as a result of the bad weather. Residents whose houses and apartments were damaged will be able to count on financial assistance from the mayor's office for repairs. In particular, for apartments it is up to 87,000 hryvnias, and for houses — up to 190,000 hryvnias.

According to Obukhov, back in 2021, officials discussed a project to deepen the buffer pond on Balkivska Street and build a network with pumps to the «Pivnichna station». The MP noted that the project would be very expensive, although there are no details yet.

«Officials talked about a great plan to increase the depth of the pond on Balkivska Street, where all the rainwater flows. But it (the pond) can no longer withstand the load. Because of climate change, there has been more rain. We also planned to lay an underground network up to the station «Pivnichna», which is seven kilometres away, and equip it with pumps to pump water,» the MP said.

He has studied two projects for Balkivska and Peresyp, which, according to the authors, can prevent street flooding. The project envisages complete drainage, cleaning of collectors, and laying a new plastic channel from the buffer pond to the rainwater collector on Shchohla Street. The works involve the repair of two sections of the collector, 730 and 830 metres long, and their total cost for 2023 was estimated at 365 million hryvnias.

The deputy noted that these projects have not yet been funded, no tenders have been announced, and their inclusion in the city budget has not been considered.

«It is clear that this is a huge amount of money, and it would be difficult for the city to pull off such work. It would be great if the state or European structures helped us with this. But it is a steep price to pay,» Petro Obukhov is convinced.

He recalled that the repair of the collector on Mytna Square cost the city more than 200 million hryvnias, and, in his opinion, the problem has been solved.

At the extraordinary session, the deputy plans to raise the issue of including funding for these projects in the budget for the coming years.

«At the extraordinary session, I will raise the issue of including funding for two projects on Balkivska Street in the budget for the next years. It is absolutely not normal when people die from the rain in Odesa and one district is cut off from the city for several days,» the MP said.

Bad weather in Odesa on 30 September

On 30 September, Odesa received one and a half months of rainfall. Civil defence volunteers and rescuers from the State Emergency Service worked alongside the utility companies.

On Wednesday, 1 October, it became known that nine people, including one child, had died as a result of the natural disaster.

Following this, Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba to conduct a full investigation into the actions of local authorities and all the circumstances. The report is expected this Friday.

Thursday, 2 October, was declared a day of mourning in Odesa region in connection with the deaths of nine people due to the natural disaster.

According to preliminary data, 286 private houses and 384 apartment buildings were flooded in all districts of the city.

On 2 October, search and rescue operations were completed in Odesa after the storm. 10 people died and over 380 were rescued. Emergency repair work is ongoing.

In total, nearly 800 buildings in Odesa were damaged in the storm.