Flood alert issued

Serious floods are likely to occur between October and November this year in southern Somalia. The USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS) in a report issued on 29 September, warns that the floods could be expected if predicted heavy rains in Ethiopia's highlands materialised. Rivers in Somalia reach peak flood levels twice a year - usually in May/June and again in October/November. Prior to the civil war the government had "regularly dredged the rivers to control flooding", but over the past 10 years river management has broken down making floods "more frequent and devastating". According to the report, the 1997-8 El-Nino rains wiped out the even the biggest embankments in Somalia's two main rivers, the Shabelle and Juba, with no major rehabilitation work carried out since. Widespread flooding in 1997 led to a major relief effort when villages were innundated and thousands made homeless. This year, there had been minor flooding in mid-August in Lower Shabelle Region, and this was "symptomatic of the level of disrepair that river embankments, sluice gates and dikes are in", the report said. However, A.H. Shirwa, a FEWS representative, told IRIN that the 29 September report was "just an alert for aid agencies and local authorities" to be prepared.