Ilmira Gafiatullina in Almaty
Twenty-nine people were killed on 14 March when a landslide engulfed two buildings in Talgar district, east of the country’s capital's commercial capital, Almaty.
The mass of mud and snow swept away a two-storey wooden apartment building and a private house in early hours of the morning, burying the occupants as they slept.
Among the dead were 15 women and six children, the youngest of whom was just two months old. Nine of the fatalities were Chinese construction workers. The next day the Ambassador of China to Kazakhstan visited the disaster site and personally expressed his condolences.
People on the first floor died instantly. Five people on the second floor were thrown out of the windows by the wave of mud, two are still in a critical condition in a local hospital.
The disaster affected a very poor community. Most of constructions in the area are made from wood or mud-bricks. Next to the destroyed house is another apartment building, which is now considered unsafe and may be demolished. Immediately after the disaster the building was sealed off and its 36 inhabitants were evacuated.
According to residents, they heard what sounded like a sonic boom, and feared it was a portent of an earthquake. The morning light exposed a scene of rubble and piles of rags.
Some people lost almost all their relatives. Dakan’s husband died 40 days before the disaster. That night she was away from home visiting relatives. In the morning she was woken by a phone call from her son. He had come back from a night shift to find their home no longer there. In one night, Dakan had lost five more loved ones, including her 16-year-old daughter and a little granddaughter.
For three days, hundreds of personnel from the national emergency agency and civil defence dug through the rubble trying to locate survivors and bodies.
The immediate needs of the victims of the disaster were covered by the government. The survivors have been sheltered in neighbouring apartments, and the Talgar district committee of the Kazakh Red Crescent has been providing hot meals to 100 people through its soup-kitchen. The Taldykorgan Red Crescent branch has distributed 25 mattresses, bedding and food parcels to the worst affected families.