Villagers to be relocated after mudslide

Tajik authorities will relocate about 500 people left homeless after a flash flood ripped through their village this month, killing 24 people. Aid agencies, however, are "concerned" about the new site. "We are concerned about a number of things at the new site," Rafael Wargus, CARE International deputy head, told IRIN from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. "Apart from distance, the place they are being transferred to is not appropriate for agriculture." On 10 August President Emomali Rakhmonov announced a decision to permanently resettle the surviving 501 inhabitants of Dasht village, 524 km east of Dushanbe, to the district of Bishkent, about 200 km southwest of the capital and close to the Uzbek border. On the night of 7 August a torrent of mud hit the Roshtkali district of the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous region, killing 24 people, destroying 75 houses and leaving hundreds homeless. It also destroyed two bridges, a medical centre, a shop, a secondary school, a library, a club, two livestock farms, hundreds of livestock and several communications infrastructures. The residents have been given temporary shelter in nearby villages, which aid officials have described as inadequate. Wargus said the new site had to be assessed for suitability because it was not even appropriate for keeping livestock. "The main concern is that the affected people get immediate assistance to meet their needs," he added. An inter-agency meeting in Dushanbe on Wednesday decided to visit the relocation site and to provide temporary shelter to the villagers. "The immediate needs of food and non-food items have been met," Valentin Gatzinski, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) office in Dushanbe, told IRIN. However, he said more work needed to be done. Since 7 August, international aid agencies and the Tajik authorities have been combining efforts to provide help to the affected villagers. Those involved in relief work include OCHA, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, several diplomatic missions and half a dozen international NGOs. Dasht, in a mountainous region along the Shokhdara river, close to the administrative centre of Roshtqala, is 45 km southeast of Khorag in Tajikistan's autonomous Gorno-Badakshan province. It is just one of many sites which are vulnerable to mudslides. Gatzinski said there were many places in Tajikistan which were vulnerable to flash floods and mudslides, though this mudslide was the biggest in recent years.