Avalanche kills four in south

An avalanche killed four people in southern Kyrgyzstan on Saturday, while heavy snow is disrupting life in the area and causing extensive damage, the emergency ministry said on Monday. “There was no warning of the disaster and actually we did not expect an avalanche in that area,” Nurlanbek Pazylov from the provincial emergency department in the southern city of Osh, said. The avalanche ripped through the village of Sary-Bee in the mountainous Kara-Kulja district of the southern Kyrgyz province of Osh, burying four members of the Monolbaev family. The Kyrgyz national news agency reported on Monday that two more avalanches struck the Kara-Suu and Alai districts of the province, but no casualties have been reported. Avalanches could strike parts of the Bishkek-Osh road - the only route linking the north and south - the Kyrgyz Akipress news agency warned on the same day. Heavy snow, up to 1.7 metres deep in higher areas, has been disrupting life in southern Kyrgyzstan since Friday. The Kyrgyz emergency ministry reported that two months’ normal precipitation hit the area in just two days. The heavy snow damaged houses and government buildings and blocked several rural roads. Local residents told IRIN that they had not seen such heavy snow since the 1980s. “Our roof has collapsed and smashed the car parked close to the house. This vehicle - which I had been renting from a local businessman - was the sole income source for our whole family,” Sulayman Akhunov, a taxi driver in Kara-Suu town, some 25 km west of the provincial capital of Osh, said with despair. “I don’t know how I will repair the roof or get the car fixed,” he added bitterly. According to preliminary estimates by the emergency ministry, over 170 houses, more than 10 schools and several government buildings were damaged in the region. “The districts of Kara-Suu, Aravan, Uzgen and Kara-Kulja have been worst affected,” Erkin Beisheev, head of the emergency reaction unit of the emergency ministry’s regional department, explained. The unusually heavy snow is also disrupting energy supply networks, with power lines buckling under the snow or unable to meet increasing energy demands. Some neighborhoods and entire villages have been without electricity under freezing temperatures for three days. The Central Asian region, including Kyrgyzstan, is prone to various natural disasters, including earthquakes, landslides, floods, avalanches and drought. According to the European Commission Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO), natural disasters have killed about 2,500 people and affected some 5.5 million, almost 10 percent of the total population in the region, over the past decade.