Russian Orthodox priests took to the skies in a small aeroplane to pray for citizens following the collapse of a dam and flooding in the Orenburg region near the border with Kazakhstan on Monday.

       Footage posted by Russian media outlets, later circulated by the advisor for the Ukrainian interior minister Anton Gerashchenko, shows four church representatives performing an aerial blessing in honour of the flood victims.

       The floods, caused by rising water levels in the Ural River near Orenburg, inundated more than 10,000 homes and forced over 6,400 people, including more than 800 children, to evacuate, according to Russian state media TASS.

       Drone footage from Orsk, which experienced the brunt of the floods that caused the dam to collapse, showed water partially submerging homes up to their roofs and nearby fields.

       Since the beginning of the emergency, a group of priests from the Orsk Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church put their backs to work to provide assistance to communities in Orsk that were hardest hit by the floods.

       The diocese assisted in evacuating more than 45 patients from flooded hospitals, as well as delivering 65 pounds of clothes and food to four of the 32 temporary accommodation centers in the city, according to the Synodal Charity Department of the Russian Orthodox Church.

       “The situation in the city is difficult - the water is still coming. Thanks to the coordinated actions of the administration and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, there is no panic - people are evacuated and transported to temporary detention centers, Archpriest Vyacheslav Kochkin said.

       “Among the victims there are many elderly and disabled people. When the water goes away, we will actively deploy volunteer assistance to clean up the houses of the victims.”

       This comes after a day after more than hundreds of residents from Orsk directed their frustration towards President Vladimir Putin and local authorities over insufficient assistance.

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       Protesters gathered in front of a local administration building in Orsk Monday, shouting slogans like "shame" and “Putin help us,” captured in video footage on Russian social media channels.

       Orenburg Governor Denis Pasler addressed a group of residents in Orsk, promising compensation payments of approximately 100 euros (10,000 rubles a month) for six months to the affected people, according to TASS.

       The total damage from the flood in the region is estimated at about 210 million euros (21 billion rubles), the regional government said on Sunday.