Mudslide Warnings Reaching Too Late

Mudslide Warnings Reaching Too Late



   
April 2007 -   The human 
casualties and economic devastation that Tajikistan routinely 
suffers from seasonal natural disasters could be reduced if 
the authorities passed on meteorological warnings to local 
communities in good time, experts say. 
Last week's heavy rain in eastern Tajikistan caused mudslides 
which destroyed over 1,000 homes and schools and damaged 
highways and electricity power lines in the Ishkashim district 
of the Badakhshan region. 
Tajikistan is especially prone to natural disasters in the 
spring, when mountain snows melt and cause mudslides and 
landslides. 
Spring melt makes Tajik rivers run fast and full. 
"The state's financial resources for risk assessment are so 
inadequate that natural disasters continue to damage 
residential areas, take human lives, destroy infrastructure 
and slow the country's economic development even further," 
said an expert at the government committee for emergencies, 
who did not want to be named. 
Seasonal natural disasters have killed 77 people and caused 
US$61 million worth of damage in the past two years. 
But observers say that even with the limited resources 
available, local administrations could have worked more 
closely with local people to reduce the scale of the 
destruction caused by mudslides that occur on an annual basis 
and can be predicted. 
Bekmurod Mahmadaliev, director of the government's Hydro and 
Meteorological Institute, says weather forecasters warn the 
authorities every year that natural disasters are likely. 
Landslide disaster in the Pamir Mountains. October 1990.
 "We give the local administration heads in towns and rural 
districts a forecast of mudslides in the mountains and 
flooding in river basins. Action should then follow on the 
ground," he said. 
Mahmadaliev believes the authorities are not making enough 
effort to work with locals, citing the example of people along 
the Vanch River in the central Pamir mountains who are still 
building new houses in a high-risk mudslide zone. 
"When the Medvezhiy glacier melts, it always causes 
mudslides," he said. "And although we are aware of the risk of 
mudslides in the area, we're still building an airport there. 
That's not to mention the people who rebuild their houses 
there every time they are destroyed by mudslides. No one wll 
listen." 
Observers say local people are often responsible for their own 
misfortune by building houses in prohibited zones that lie in 
the path of mudslides and landslides. Local officials often 
give people pemission to return to the danger zone after they 
have been relocated to safer areas. 
"Auxiliary canals were dug near [dangerous] rivers in Soviet 
times, and protected residential areas from disasters," said 
the expert from the emergencies committee. "But unfortunately, 
they have now been destroyed, and people have started building 
houses and cultivating land in their place, which will 
certainly lead to disaster." 
 

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