Fourteen people perished in a flood in southern Russia, TV reports said yesterday as people picked through the debris in Krasnodar region, where the Sochi Winter Olympics will be held in 2014.

“The identity of the 14th victim was established,” Vesti-24 channel said yesterday, quoting police. Eleven people are still missing after a torrential flood that necessitated the evacuation of 280 people in Tuapse district.

Tuapse is a Black Sea town in Krasnodar region, about 70 kilometres up the coast from Sochi, where Russia is to host the Winter Olympic Games in 2014.

The flash flood took people by surprise around midnight on Friday, subsiding by midday Saturday. Seven villages and 17 small settlements were flooded by two mountain rivers that rose from strong rains, the emergency ministry said.

Locals said the death toll was likely to rise in the next few days as more missing bodies are found in calmed waters.

“There are dead bodies lying along the road,” Tuapse district resident Evgeny Vitishko said. Search and rescue works are in full swing and include search dogs and army soldiers, he said.

The flood destroyed eight bridges, disrupted local train services, and left thousands of people without power in the Tuapse and Sochi districts, television reports said.

“People are using ropes to get water and food across the river” to villages cut off from the main road, Mr Vitishko said. Tuapse, with a population of 60,000, was also under a metre of water, he added.

TV footage showed people using buckets and mops to ladle water and mud out of their houses. Water rose to cover the entire first floor of the houses.

The toll would have been smaller if people had been adequately warned about the coming wave, locals said.

“There was a great rush of water,” said Alexander Koles-nikov, resident of affected village Krivenkovskoye. “Some people were asleep,” he said, “There was no warning.” He said the last time such a flood occurred was in 1991.

The Krasnodar region prosecutor opened a probe into whether the emergency ministry and local officials did everything in their power to prevent the catastrophe, ITAR-TASS re-ported yesterday.

More floods could mean more damage late Sunday and Monday in Krasnodar region and neighboring Adygeya region, the regional emergency ministry said on its website yesterday.