Government says it is ready for seasonal flooding

Reports of flash floods in different parts of the country over the past month have prompted the government to say it is better prepared than before to mitigate the effects of seasonal flooding in 2009. 



Listen to this report in Dari or Pashto



Aid has been dispatched to 17 flood-prone provinces, the Afghanistan National Disasters Management Authority (ANDMA) told IRIN.



“We have sent 4,916 tents, 17 emergency medical kits each of which can be used for 2,000 people, and food supplies,” said Mohammad Seddiq Hassani, ANDMA’s director of planning and coordination.



The Ministry of Defence has said it would provide helicopters to evacuate people in severe flooding cases, he said.



The government has also sent tens of thousands of gabion boxes to flood-prone areas. Gabions are large metal boxes/cages which can be filled with stone and/or gravel and placed on river banks and at other locations as flood-resistant walls.



Floods and landslides pose serious threats to large swathes of the country, usually in spring and summer when snow starts melting or glacier lakes suddenly burst, causing destructive flash floods, according to the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP).



According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 3,508 people were killed, 661 injured and about 1,015,935 affected in the 46 floods in the country from 1954 to 2007.



Flooding also kills livestock, destroys farms and trees and causes extensive economic damage to rural and urban areas, experts say.



“If the current environmental problems in Afghanistan are not fully addressed, they will have dramatic impacts on the people and the economy,” UNEP warned in a report in 2008.



“In Afghanistan, as in many developing countries, environmental degradation and sustainable development are inextricably linked to livelihoods, poverty reduction and human health,” said the report, entitled Afghanistan’s Environment 2008.



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