The
2,000 inhabitants of Kyzyl-Charba have to move. The hillside
above them is going to collapse and a landslide will sweep away
their village. Experts tell them it is safe for now but the
danger is developing.
No one need look far to understand what that means. Up the road
a hillside fell away last summer. Some six million cubic metres
of mud roared over the road and blocked the nearby river. The
Ministry of Ecology and Emergencies needed a month and a half
to clear the road.
The river needed longer to clear itself.
Huge mud walls either side of the road are still a reminder
to the villagers. But here in Osh province, and in neighbouring
Jalal-Abad, in south-western Kyrgyzstan, they do not really
need reminding. They have lived with disaster all their lives.
The biggest problem is that they accept them - that disasters
are almost no longer news.
Landslides, floods and debris flows are frequent, earthquakes
common. Osh province had five major slides last year; Jalal-Abad
suffered 44 disasters in the first quarter alone, according
to the governor's office, and the annual average is 150 and
increasing. The authorities primarily blame climate change,
saying ever more rain saturates and undermines a relatively
young geology, and swells river systems.
The Ministry of Emergencies has mapped 3,000 landslide-prone
areas in Kyrgyzstan's mountainous south, and says 700 settlements
are under some kind of disaster threat. The spring of 2003 underlined
the warning with catastrophe affecting 4,000 people, flooding
or destroying close to 400 homes, and badly damaging infrastructure.
Worst of all was the mudslide that overwhelmed the village of
Sogot, in Osh province's Uzgen district. Of the 38 people who
died when 1.5 million cubic metres of mud descended on the village,
most were women and children, some of them mothers rushing back
to their homes to save infants.
Sultan Akylov's wife was one of them. He lost a son and two
daughters, as well. Away from the village herding livestock
when the hillside fell, he returned to find his home buried.
Today he lives with five surviving children in a new community
of modern brick houses well away from any danger. A government
scheme with interest-free loans and other forms of assistance
is re-housing people from the most stricken and threatened areas.
The tragedy is that Akylov's loved ones need not have perished.
A few years before, the government had distributed relocation
money to entice people away from threatened communities. Villagers
spent it on other things, and say now that they were too poor
to move and had more pressing requirements: livestock, seeds,
their children's education. Now the government is cracking down,
obliging people to move to safety.
The flood-prone hamlet of Jilaldy in the Uzgen district is one
where a move is underway. Jilaldy is located on low-lying land
next to the Zerger river, and the swampy surrounds are perfect
for rice, the main crop. What is good for rice is not necessarily
good for people and when, last spring, snowmelt swelled the
river, the bank gave way and the hamlet went under - as it has
done periodically for as long as such things have been recorded.
Some villagers are already rehoused alongside the victims of
Sogot, and the authorities plan to move the rest in 2004. Osh's
civil defence chief, Jergalbek Isakeevich Ukashev, is being
firm with people who try to retain their old homes after getting
a new one somewhere else. "They can still use the land
but once they have moved we tell them to destroy the old house
or we will destroy it for them."
Getting those most at risk to safety will be a long process.
Near Sogot, he points to the scar hanging over what remains
of the village, then to telltale signs of other disasters developing
in the highlands. Some 350 families still live here and over
the next five years the authorities plan to re-house them all.
Since most of them depend on cattle that need the highland pastures,
they will be allowed to live here in summer. But, Ukashev says,
when the weather turns and the landslide season approaches,
they will be obliged to leave again.
Preventing disaster
Placing people out of harm's way is one method of avoiding calamity
but in a country which is 93 per cent mountains, has 20 types
of natural disaster and around a million people exposed to a
high risk of earthquakes, avalanches, mudflows and landslides,
it is one small part of the disaster prevention and preparedness
equation. The Kyrgyzstan Red Crescent is helping communities
to manage the risk and reduce the impact.
When emergencies happen, Red Crescent relief comes fast via
a national network of branches and school programmes, by organizing
local disaster committees, and by removing risk factors where
possible, the same branches working to avert the human suffering
they so often have to mitigate. Supported by the Netherlands
Red Cross and the disaster preparedness programme of the European
Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (DIPECHO), they are showing
vulnerable people that they are far from helpless.
The European Union provides about half of all the humanitarian
aid spent on emergencies around the world. ECHO's core mandate
is emergency aid but it has been financing disaster preparedness
since 1996. Poul Nielson, European Commissioner for Development
and Humanitarian Aid, affirms, "even simple and inexpensive
precautions can help save lives and property when disaster strikes.
Our preparedness programme has proved effective for beneficiaries
and good value for European tax payers."
His words gain perspective in Jalal-Abad and Osh provinces,
Kyrgyzstan's most disaster prone areas. Although the risk is
high, a Dutch-supported Red Crescent branch development programme
found communities unaware of, and unprepared for, events that
could easily overwhelm them. Violeta Lombarts, Netherlands Red
Cross desk officer for Central Asia, explains.
"There are very few roads in the rural areas and those
are likely to be cut in the event of disaster, and even in urban
and semi-urban areas little infrastructure exists for disaster
response. Self-help is imperative so now with our help the Red
Crescent is strengthening local capacities."
Salam-Alik, a village of seven hamlets surrounded by hills in
deepest Osh, is far from any assistance and getting to it when
disaster strikes could be problematic. Given the unstable hillsides,
the annual mudflows and the recurring seismic tremors - some
42 registered in the first eight months of last year - a disaster
could occur tomorrow. If it did, getting word out, or even round
the village, would be challenging.
The one telephone line Salam-Alik possesses is out of order
most of the time. "We would have to warn people by going
around on horseback or sounding a gong," someone ventured
at a village meeting.
Discussion about being prepared has preoccupied the village
since the Red Crescent advised it to establish a local disaster
committee. Now the community has been divided up into operational
sectors and people assigned key functions.
Head teacher Salamat Jarkynbaeva has prepared an evacuation
plan that she reviews and updates on a regular basis. Hospital
nurse Saira Toktahunova can be seen out and about the village
monitoring who is ill and where the babies are located: essential
intelligence should emergency action be necessary.
Salam-Alik is developing a disaster plan so that if, God forbid,
catastrophe strikes everyone will know what to do. The teacher
and nurse are among a dozen leaders who have all formed groups
to deal with specific issues. Jarkynbaeva is proud of her senior
pupils who are ready to take care of the elderly. The Red Crescent
is guiding and training the leaders. What they are taught of
first aid and disaster preparedness they pass on to their people.
Disasters can also be prevented. Salam-Alik's economy is agriculture,
cattle rearing and walnut growing. Some of the world's best
walnuts come from here and it is the most common tree in the
district. The Kyrgyzstan Red Crescent and the Netherlands Red
Cross see more than nuts when they look at stands of walnut
trees. They see roots with a spread of around six metres. Just
what you need to bring stability to a potentially risky hillside.
With DIPECHO funding, they have acquired some 20,800 walnut
trees to plant on unwooded hillsides above the village that,
left untouched, could produce devastating landslides in the
near future. Set five metres apart they will cover 220,000 square
metres and between them will be planted acacia, dog rose and
karagach trees. The root network produced will be as intricate
and stable as the thick wire meshing that encases rock where
the Red Crescent is strengthening river banks.
The people of Salam-Alik will take care of the trees. They will
sleep safer in their beds at night and the harvest will put
money in the community's pocket.
How many lives could be saved?
What would you do if there were an earthquake? The question
from a Red Crescent officer brings an incredulous smile to the
face of 14-year-old Ainura in the Jiyde village school in Jalal-Abad.
The body language needs no translation. "Are you a fruit
cake or what?" she is thinking and from the back of the
classroom shouts, "Run! Run for your life, of course."
The officer begs to differ. "You'd be better advised to
find a nice strong doorway," she tells her. "You might
just be running to your
death."
Ainura stops grinning. "Huh?" she says, her eyes popping
out of her head.
It is in the schools of Kyrgyzstan that the Red Crescent begins
its disaster preparedness programmes. The children have to know.
This session is an introduction but soon teachers will be trained
to train their pupils themselves. First aid will be part of
the programme.
The Jiyde school was chosen because the community sits by the
Karadaria river and is prone to mud flows and flooding. Earthquakes
have shaken it in the past, the biggest in 1992 when one registering
six on the Richter scale caused considerable damage. The epicentre
was 180 kilometres away.
No one died that day. "But imagine," the Red Crescent
officer is telling a group of teachers gathered to discuss the
programme. "It is nine o'clock in the morning, an earthquake
occurs, the school collapses. How many lives could you have
saved?"
If anyone doubted disaster preparedness was necessary, they
do not doubt it now.
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The
local population plants trees in Salim Alik as a way of
preventing landslides (p12492)
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A
village in Dubitel region, abandoned after being destroyed
in a flood (p12494)
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Flood-affected
villagers from Dubitel region have been re-housed in new
homes in safer areas (p12491)
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Local
Red Crescent volunteers in Salam Alik region conduct an
earthquake disaster exercise, raising awareness among
the local population about what to do if disaster strikes
(p12493)
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Children
take part in an evacuation exercise in Salam Alik (p12495)
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