Up to 100,000 face evacuation in Russia's flood-hit far east

Sat, Aug 17 07:07 AM EDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - As many as 100,000 people may be evacuated from their homes near Russia's border with China if the region's biggest floods for 120 years get worse, Russian media reported on Saturday. The floods, caused by a month of unusually heavy rain, are not expected to start receding until early September, the head of Russia's hydrometeorology monitoring service told news agency Ria Novosti. Television footage showed residents rowing boats past half-submerged houses and military vehicles dumping gravel to counter the floodwater, which has already led to the evacuation of about 170,000 people from the Amur, Khabarovsk and Jewish Autonomous regions. "The damage is extensive, but the most significant achievement is there have been no casualties ... we cannot relax, there is still a lot of work to be done," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address. Water has swamped huge swathes of the countryside with 400,000 hectares of agricultural land submerged, causing potential damage of more than 2 billion roubles ($60 million), Putin's envoy to the region Viktor Ishaev was quoted as saying. In 2012, flash floods killed 171 people and damaged more than 4,000 homes in southern Russia's mountainous Caucasus region. (Reporting by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Louise Ireland) =========== Khabarovsk is the largest city and the administrative center of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located 30 kilometers (19 mi) from the Chinese border, at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, about 800 kilometers (500 mi) north of Vladivostok. The city also became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia in 2002. It is the second largest city in the Russian Far East, after Vladivostok. Population: ================ China signs border demarcation pact with Russia Mon, Jul 21 06:22 AM EDT BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Russia on Monday signed a pact that finally settled the demarcation of their 4,300-km (2,672-mile) border, the scene of armed clashes at the height of the Cold War. The "additional protocol on the eastern part of borders" was signed by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Xinhua news agency said. "It shows that as long was we strive to find solutions on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, all questions -- also complicated ones -- can be solved," Lavrov told reporters. Russia is eager to boost exports of oil, gas and nuclear products to China, the world's second biggest consumer of oil and power, though China's growing world clout is watched with some anxiety by Moscow's elite. Russia, whose $1.3 trillion economy is booming for a tenth straight year, has forged close ties with China on a number of world issues, including Iran and North Korea. But relations over the past century have run hot and cold. China and the Soviet Union went from being best friends in the 1950s to suspicious rivals a decade later when they fought a series of border skirmishes after falling out over ideological principles. The two countries signed an agreement on demarcation of the eastern part of their border in 1991, followed by a supplementary agreement in 2004. A pact on the western border was signed in 1994. According to the latest protocol, Russia would return Yinlong island , or Tarabarov Island, and half of Heixiazi island (Bolshoi Ussuriysky island), the China Daily said on Monday. The 174-square km of territory, which was seized by the then Soviet Union in 1929, is at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers that serve as the natural border between the two countries, the newspaper said. "It means that 4,300 km of border between us has been demarcated," Yang told reporters after signing the document. "In our talks we placed high value on the speedy development and successes of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership in recent years." Lavrov said Russian Premier Vladimir Putin would attend the opening ceremony of the Aug 8-24 Beijing Olympics and meet Chinese leaders. (Reporting by Guo Shipeng and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie) =======================