Focus on landslide vulnerability in the south

Southern Kyrgyzstan is becoming increasingly vulnerable to major landslides, while the devastation caused by landslides last year in the south has yet to be rectified, emergency officials have told IRIN. Maanai Uraimova and her family are some of the local residents who were affected by a landslide in the southern province of Osh last spring. Fortunately, they escaped when a huge mass of earth wiped out half the village of Sogot in the Uzgen district of Osh in April 2003. More than 30 of her neighbours died when they were buried under the landslide. The blighted area has been declared a communal grave as it was impossible to dig out the bodies of the dead. "At least 500 new places prone to landslides have been registered in Kyrgyzstan in 2003. This brings the total [of places vulnerable to landslides] in the country to 4,500 and 95 percent of them are located in the south of the country," Anarkul Aitaliev, a senior official at the Ministry of Ecology and Emergency Situations (MEES), told IRIN in the provincial city of Osh. And while Uraimovs' house was not damaged by the disaster, authorities decided to move the survivors to a more secure place. The family, having many children, was provided with two plots for building a new house at the site, not far from Uzgen town. "We are grateful to the authorities. They quickly gave us land for building, and then provided loans," Maanai told IRIN. The mother-of-eight added that some US $4,500, including some building materials, were provided, but the sum was not sufficient to build a new house, due to high prices. So she had to sell her remaining cattle and borrow money to complete her new home. The old woman is now living with her children in two rooms that she managed to adapt for living. Her elder son, who had also been moved to the new village, couldn't finish his house either - he, too, had run out of money. "We are cold and hungry. We don't have money for buying wood for heating, wheat that we cultivated on the plot of land that we were given has failed to give a good harvest," Mukarram Sydykova, Maanai's neighbour, told IRIN. There are more than 50 former Sogot residents in the new settlement. The authorities have built houses for 13 of them who lost their relatives, houses and livelihoods in the landslide, while the rest, like Maanai, were given loans for building new houses. All of the new settlers are unemployed, although in their former village in the mountains they used to breed cattle on vast areas of land and cultivate vegetables on small farms. But now most are destitute. At the new site there is a lack of arable land, as well as frequent electricity and water cut offs. "There [in the mountains] we used to drink spring water, but here we drink dirty irrigation ditch water, God forbid, one can contract an infection," Maanai complained to IRIN. Many of those who decided not to build a new house, but to buy a house or an apartment, still don't have shelter. "My son Asan lives with his two kids in a shack in the provincial capital [Osh]," Mukarram Sydykova said, adding that her son, getting by on casual labour, was paying some US $20 a month for that. "Initially we were promised that we would be able to get a loan to buy a house at any time. But after they [the authorities] said that they would give it in August, then postponed it till October and now it is 2004," Mirlan Ermekov, another survivor of the Sogot landslide, said. According to the Osh provincial civil defence centre, some 600 families had been moved from landslide-prone areas in 2003. Almost 300 of them were provided plots for building new housing and some 140 families managed to move into partially-built houses. Others have postponed construction till summer, living with relatives. Meanwhile the problem of landslides is growing, particularly in southern Kyrgyzstan. Last year, heavy rains led to eight times the number of landslides compared to 2002. At least 39 people were killed, hundreds of head of livestock were buried under the shifting land and 450 houses were destroyed completely or partially. Dozens of communication and electricity polls were destroyed by the disasters and roads and farms washed away. These are the consequences of the disaster in Osh province alone. The number of people affected reached 4,000 and the total amount of damage was estimated to be more than US $1.5 million. Given the magnitude of the situation and growing number of landslides in the country, the authorities are taking some measures to minimise the threat, but are short of funds. "We've distributed related material among international organisations and some of them are already responding to our appeal to provide assistance to Kyrgyzstan. However, it is only at the stage of talks and working visits. The World Bank, which is getting to know our programme, is also interested in landslides," Aitaliev of MEES said. The emergency officials say that there needs to be comprehensive preventive measures. According to Aitaliev, the emergency ministry is working on a draft of a government decree, in which priorities for fighting natural disasters are expected to be identified, namely financing primary works and attracting foreign aid. "First of all, we need to conduct a comprehensive monitoring of landslide-prone places with the involvement of scientific research and survey organisations," said Aitaliev. "In some places, it might be necessary to stabilise areas prone to landslides, in some places - we might need to move people urgently to more secure places," he added. Natural disasters mainly occur in southern Kyrgyzstan - due to geological conditions, nature and climate. But the recent increase in lethal landslides and floods is related, scientists say, to increased deforestation and higher rainfall caused by globally-warmed snows melting earlier. According to the Osh governorship, two thirds of the region's mountainous areas are in the landslide prone zone. People die because lots of human settlements have been established in Kyrgyzstan without proper land stability surveys having being carried out. According to Bolot Kulnazarov, a local environmental scientists and the head of Tabiat, a local ecological NGO based in Osh, human activity is the main reason for the increase. Excessive consumption of natural resources in mountain areas, including cutting down forests for wood, turning pastures into barren land and excessive use of subalpine meadows and steppes for farming, were leading to soil erosion. "If you analyse the demographic situation in Kyrgyzstan, in the south, pressure on nature through consumption of resources has sharply increased," he said, adding that there hadn't been any major disasters in parts of the country where the ecological balance had been maintained. Naken Kasiev, the governor of Osh, said that authorities were adopting a programme of gradual relocation of villages vulnerable to landslides to secure places over several years. If this policy is carried out, it would lead to half the mountain villages in Osh province being relocated elsewhere, leading to massive disruption to hundreds of thousands of people. "It will be difficult both financially and psychologically, but if we don't start it today, we will be exposed to the risk of huge disasters every year," the governor warned. Civic groups have emphasised the importance of improving preventive measures and awareness raising among the population. The law on illegal construction also needed to be enforced so that houses were not built on unstable or low-lying land. But many mountain dwellers are simply too attached to their villages and lifestyles to heed government warnings that they must relocate. Those who see the logic of moving to safer settlements need support. Sociologists say resettlement programmes should include rehabilitation and employment training." We need to create new jobs for such people and help them integrate with the local population," said Adyljan Abidov, deputy head of the Centre for Support of Civil Initiatives, a local NGO based in Osh. But new jobs are very hard to find in Kyrgyz cities like Osh, where at least around half the adult population are without work, hence the need for resources to help those people in transition.