Flood detection project saves lives

A project designed to give 130,000 people living below Lake Sarez in the Pamir Mountains advance warning of possible catastrophic floods was launched on Thursday in the Tajik capital Dushanbe. International experts and representatives of the World Bank, the governments of Switzerland, the United States and the Aga Khan Development Network attended the launch of the project, Goulsara Pulatova, a spokeswoman for the implementing agency Focus, told IRIN. Lake Sarez was formed in 1911 by a massive landslide following an earthquake in a region that remains geologically unstable. International funding and technical assistance from Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Canada and the US Geological Survey enabled a monitoring and community-based early warning system to be implemented in the valleys downstream from the lake using search and rescue teams equipped with radios. They were able to detect a recent landslide upstream from the village of Razuch in time for villagers to escape to high ground without injury, averting a potential disaster. She said a radio network in the valleys also doubled as an emergency medical service, an added benefit for people who would otherwise have to travel up to 200 km for medical attention. An International Strategy for Disaster Reduction report on Sarez found that Lake Sarez posed a potential risk to three countries downstream - Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. `In a worst-case scenario, a catastrophic outburst flood from Lake Sarez would destroy the villages and infrastructure in the Amu Darya River basin between the Lake and the Aral Sea, a distance of over 2,000 km inhabited by more than five million people’, the report said.