The flash flooding also forced authorities to close Armenia’s main border crossing with Georgia and suspend rail service between the two countries.
Sections of the two national highways leading to the Bagratashen crossing were destroyed by the fast-flowing Debed and Aghstev rivers overnight following heavy rainfalls. The Armenian Interior Ministry reported one casualty in the morning. Its Rescue Service said it is searching for another man believed to have fallen into the swollen Debed.
News reports and footage posted on social media suggested that the Lori town of Alaverdi and nearby communities were hit hardest by what was the country’s worst flooding in decades. According to the Interior Ministry, most of the 232 people evacuated from their homes by early afternoon lived there.
An Alaverdi resident, Ani Mosinian, said flood waters destroyed a bridge connecting two parts of the town.
“I can’t leave my home because it’s too dangerous,” Mosinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “I can see from my window that the first floors of buildings are under water.”
Another Alaverdi resident, Gevorg Aslanian, gave a similar account. He said he went to the flooded part of the formerly industrial town, the Sanahin neighborhood, to help a friend trapped there. He said he found no rescuers at the scene.
“The evacuations were mainly carried out by local residents themselves,” Aslanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “There are still people remaining in their [flooded] homes. They don’t want to get out even though they have no water, gas or electricity.”
Armenia’s national water distribution company, Veolia Djur, said the floods disrupted water supply to not only Alaverdi but also 15 other settlements in Lori.
“The level of the Debed went up by six meters, and it is not possible to approach the [regional] water main or carry out any other work at the moment,” the company said in a statement.
Also left without water were some parts of Dilijan, a resort town in neighboring Tavush. Outside the town, Tavush Governor Hayk Ghalumian looked on as heavy trucks and excavators hastily shored up Aghstev river banks to prevent further damage to the regional highway leading to the Georgian border. Road police limited but did not block traffic through the damaged sections of the highway.
The Rescue Service reported that a short circuit caused an explosion at an inundated gas station in Alaverdi. It did not say whether anyone was hurt as a result.
“The river has washed away all shops, restaurants and other structures located along the highway running parallel to it,” said Anush Navasardian, the owner of a guesthouse in Tumanian, a town 20 kilometers south of Alaverdi.
“We can’t get out of town right now because the road was damaged from both sides,” she said, adding that people staying in the guesthouse remain stranded there.
The Rescue Service evacuated about three dozen people from another, bigger hotel which is located on the Debed river bank.
Another Lori town, Akhatala, and surrounding villages were reportedly cut off from the rest of the province. Speaking to Akhtala, an environmental activist, Oleg Durgarian, said that a bridge on the sole road connecting the area to Alaverdi and provincial capital Vanadzor was under water in the afternoon.
The Armenian government set up a task force to cope with the natural disaster uncommon for the mountainous country. It said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rushed to the flooded areas in the afternoon to inspect rescue efforts and damage caused to them.