Floods cause havoc in south

Torrential rains over the past week have caused havoc in southern Tajikistan and thousands of local residents have been evacuated to safer areas, according to emergency officials. Mudflows caused by the downpours have also damaged crops and infrastructure in the area. "Around 4,300 residents have been evacuated from the Netontugay village of the southern Hamadoni district, along with some 3,000 inhabitants of the Sovetobod village due to the concerns for their safety," Nazokatsho Sayorabekov, a spokesman for the Tajik emergency ministry, said on Wednesday in the capital, Dushanbe. The emergency ministry also announced that more than 200 hectares of crops were destroyed by mudflows in the Hamadoni district, while in another southern district of Farkhor over 600 metres of riverbank reinforcement have been damaged after heavy rains over the past week. The emergency workers in the area were attempting to reinforce riverbanks and mitigate the risk of further damage. Tajikistan's terrain is very mountainous with more than 90 percent of its territory consisting of high mountain ranges. The former Soviet republic is probably the most disaster-prone of all its Central Asian neighbours, as the first six months of this year have shown. "In Tajikistan, 28 people were killed by various natural disasters, including mudflows, avalanches and landslides since 1 January," Abdurahim Rajabov, deputy emergency minister, said. "More than 1,500 houses have been destroyed by natural disasters over the past six months and the main reason is that local residents build their houses on mountain slopes or close to rivers. As a result of that, more than 10,000 people throughout the country became displaced over that period," the emergency official explained. The emergency ministry, with the support of the disaster response group, was delivering tents, food, drinking water, clothes and other relief items to the affected areas. The disaster response group consists of a group of aid organisations which include the local offices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Tajikistan Red Crescent Society (TRCS), World Food Programme, German Agro Action, European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) and various others. Meanwhile, visiting Russian emergency minister Sergey Shoygu, said to journalists in Dushanbe on Tuesday that the Tajik emergency body had appealed to its Russian counterpart for assistance in dealing with the damage caused by recent natural disasters. "Russia of course will provide help to Tajikistan to mitigate the consequences of the disaster. However, first of all, the exact extent of the damage and the amount of assistance expected should be identified," Shoygu said. Tajikistan is prone to a variety of natural disasters, including earthquakes, landslides, floods, avalanches and drought. In 2003, 120 incidents of flooding, avalanches and landslides were recorded in the country as well as 12 significant earthquakes, according to ECHO. In the Central Asian region as a whole, natural disasters have killed about 2,500 people and affected some 5.5 million (almost 10 percent of the total population) over the past decade, ECHO said.