Bad weather causes havoc in south

Landslides and floods triggered by torrential rains have damaged farmlands and infrastructure in southern Tajikistan, the country’s emergencies ministry said on Wednesday. "Heavy rain and hail, along with floods, have caused extensive damage to farmlands and cotton plantations in the six districts of the southern Khatlon province, including Yavan, Khorasan, Dangara, Muminabad, Shurabad and Temur-Malik," Jamila Tiloeva, a spokeswoman for the Tajik emergencies ministry, said from the capital, Dushanbe. "The bad weather has claimed the life of a local resident in the Khorasan district. The total amount of damage incurred is still being assessed," Tiloeva added. More than 3,000 ha of cotton have been damaged by the torrential rains and subsequent mudflows, mainly in the south, Kadyr Kasymov, deputy agriculture minister was quoted by the Tajik Avesta news agency as saying. According to the Tajik emergencies agency, the bad weather has prevailed in the area for more than one week disrupting life and damaging infrastructure, including roads and bridges. In the town of Rogun, some 100 km east of Dushanbe, a landslide on Sunday caused by torrential rains destroyed the only water pipeline feeding the town, leaving some 13,000 residents without access to clean drinking water. "The landslide buried around 100 metres of the water pipeline, blocking the flow of water. The local authorities and emergency units are currently providing clean drinking water to the affected populations by trucks. The repair work is under way and residents should get the water supply back soon," the emergency official explained. Tajikistan is prone to various natural disasters, including landslides, avalanches, floods and earthquakes. According to the World Bank, each year the mountainous Central Asian state experiences around 50,000 landslides, some 5,000 tremors and earthquakes, and hundreds of avalanches and debris flows. These natural disasters exacerbate poverty and hinder economic progress in the impoverished country, where more than 60 percent of the population lives below the national poverty line. According to the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), natural disasters, including landslides, floods and earthquakes, have killed about 2,500 people and affected some 5.5 million (almost 10 percent of the total population) in the five Central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - over the past decade.