In the city of Kurgan, the region's administrative center, power was cut off, affecting about 1,500 residents, local officials said late on Monday.

Residents of Ishim, a town of 65,000 people in the Tyumen region in southwestern Siberia, bordering Kazakhstan, were asked early on Tuesday to urgently evacuate because of a critical rise in the water level in the Ishim River that flows through the town.