Landslides in south kill more than 30

Almost 35 people are reported dead and a dozen injured following a series of landslides over the past three days in southern Kyrgyzstan. "A landslide buried seven houses today [Monday morning] in the Budalyk village of the [southern] Alay district," Emil Akmatov, a spokesman for the Kyrgyz Emergency Situations Ministry's civil defence unit, told IRIN from the capital, Bishkek. According to the Ministry of Ecology and Emergency Situations (MEES) of Kyrgyzstan, 33 people were reported dead in the incident, including 16 children, 10 of whom were under the age of six. Some 12 village residents were taken to a hospital in Gulcho, the capital of Alay district, with five of them still undergoing treatment as of Monday afternoon. The ministry's statement came after three separate landslides struck the south of the former Soviet republic. "There have been landslides one after another over the past three days," Akmatov said. On Saturday, the first landslide took place in the Tulku-Say area not far from the southern Kyrgyz town of Mailuu-Suu, where an 18-year-old shepherd was killed while herding his flock. On Sunday, the second landslide occurred in the southern Kara-Suu district. "A land mass of some 400 cubic metres partially covered the house of a local resident and buried a barn and other household buildings. The owner of the house with his wife and three children were not injured, but one of the kids received concussion," the emergency official said, adding that some 50 head of livestock were also killed in the incident. Meanwhile, rescue workers were still on the ground in search of possible survivors still missing, Akmatov added. "All landslides occur in the south around Ferghana depression. There are some 4,000 landslide prone areas in the country, of which 96 percent are in the south, namely in the Ferghana Valley area," Akmatov said. Earlier this year, emergency officials warned about the possibility of landslides becoming more frequent in the southern part of the mountainous country. "At least 500 new places prone to landslides have been registered in Kyrgyzstan in 2003," Anarkul Aitaliev, a senior emergency official, told IRIN earlier this year. The emergency officials cite the natural structure of the soil in the region, which consists mostly of clay and lime, heavy precipitation and seismic activity as the main factors increasing landslide vulnerability. The Kyrgyz meteorological service reported that the amount of precipitation this spring was three to four times the average annual levels and in some areas reached up to 270 percent of normal amounts. According to a landslide vulnerability scale, when precipitation reaches 140 percent of normal, land masses start moving and landslides occur. As for seismic activity, the emergency official noted that every year some 3,000 tremors of various magnitudes were being registered in Kyrgyzstan, the majority of which occurred in the south. "These are the main factors that affect the landslide process," Akmatov stressed, adding that Budalyk village along with Kara-Suu and Kara-Kulja districts were the epicentres of the landslides in the south. In 2003, heavy rains led to eight times the number of landslides compared to 2002. At least 39 people were killed and hundreds of head of livestock buried under the shifting land, while 450 houses were destroyed completely or partially. Dozens of communication and electricity poles were destroyed by the disasters and roads and farms were washed away. The number of people affected reached 4,000 and the total amount of damage was estimated to be more than US $1.5 million.