At the end of March, Dagestan and Chechnya were hit by heavy rain and flooding. Water and mudslides destroyed homes, roads, bridges and cars, while thousands of people were left without electricity, heating and communications. As authorities imposed emergency regimes and announced compensation, local residents largely had to rescue one another in the first hours on their own.
In the Dagestani village of Chuni, on March 28, the home of MMA fighter Ramazan Gasanov was struck by a mudflow. Gasanov had noticed a ruptured pipe on a slope and began recording a warning for neighbors when a mass of water, sand and stones rushed downward. Much of the two-story house was destroyed, the upper floor suffered the worst damage, and the impact also ruptured a gas pipe. His relative Diana said communications, water and gas disappeared in the village almost immediately, and most of the family’s property could not be saved.
According to the publication’s sources, the first help for the Gasanov family came from fellow villagers, who cleared debris and carried out belongings. Police officers and local authorities arrived only the next day and promised assistance, but the compensation process remained unclear.
In Makhachkala, residents said the scale of the flooding was primarily linked to the lack of a proper storm-drain system. During the flood, cafe worker Abdurakhman Abdurakhmanov rescued a six-year-old girl with a disability who was being swept away by the current. More than 500,000 subscribers across the republic lost electricity, and some districts also lost water and heating. Dagestan head Sergei Melikov said the actual weather conditions exceeded even the most pessimistic forecasts.
Against that backdrop, attention again turned to the repair of Makhachkala’s storm-water system. In 2022-2023, the city housing and utilities agency signed a contract with PIK-Stroyservice worth 512 million rubles, of which 417 million was reportedly transferred to the contractor. In 2025, city officials said almost no work had been done at the listed sites, and by autumn the case had become a criminal investigation: investigators say the paperwork on completed drainage repairs was falsified.
Residents also described other acts of mutual aid. In Kaspiysk, during the search for 19-year-old Shamil, a young man with autism spectrum disorder, it emerged that before disappearing he had been carrying women across a flooded area. Another widely discussed case involved Khatib Dzhabrailov, who cut through window bars and pulled four children out of a house filling with water, even though his own home was also submerged that day. Small businesses were hit as well, including the Makhachkala pastry shop La Fam.
In Chechnya, an emergency regime was introduced on March 29. The Gudermes district was hit hardest, and more than 1,100 people were evacuated. In the mountainous part of the republic, landslides washed away slopes and damaged roads. Ramzan Kadyrov described the situation as difficult but under control, and on March 30 said 100 houses would be built in a safe area for the hardest-hit families.
In Dagestan, the authorities promised payments from the republic’s reserve fund: a one-time payment of 15,675 rubles per person, 78,735 rubles for partial loss of essential property, and 156,750 rubles for total loss. Residents interviewed by the publication said those sums were inadequate and that the main lesson of the disaster was that they could rely above all on one another. Bad weather continues in the region, and people fear new rains and landslides.