Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered investigators to find out if enough was done to prevent 144 people being killed in floods in southern Russia after flying to the region to deal with the first big disaster of his new presidency. After visiting the flood zone late on Saturday, Putin said that money would be put aside for building new homes for victims of the worst flooding in decades in Krasnodar, a relatively rich region with agriculture and tourism industries. An Interior Ministry crisis centre said 144 people had been killed in the flooding after two months' average rainfall fell in a few hours on Friday night. Most of the dead were drowned, many of them elderly people caught unawares as they slept, according to a report of Reuters. Putin and the regional governor surveyed the flood zone from a helicopter and bumped over a country road in a minibus with the head of the Krymsk district, discussing the disaster response in the town worst hit by the flooding. "I have asked the leadership of the (federal) Investigative Committee to come down. The Investigative Committee will check the actions of all the authorities - how notice was given, how it could have been given, how it should have been given and who acted in what way," Putin told a meeting in Krymsk. "I ask you to cooperate," he said.
