Focus on winter power shortages

Although Uzbekistan is the world’s eighth largest producer of natural gas, many of its people are forced to sit out the sub-zero winter months with little or no power, leading to serious health problems, like tuberculosis asthma and influenza. Many families risk death and serious injury by constructing their own highly dangerous heating systems. Sanobar Kurbonova is a 52-year-old widowed mother of eight children who has to endure such conditions. Her husband died of cancer several years ago. She lives in a tiny house on the outskirts of Andijan town in the Uzbek part of the Ferghana Valley, with no gas and only sporadic electricity. In an effort to keep warm during the biting Central Asian winter, the family of nine uses the 12-metre square living room as a bedroom. "This is the only heat I will get today," she breathed, while cradling a mug of steaming tea in her mittened fingers. Sanobar led one of dozens of recent protests against gas and electricity cut-offs that eastern Andijan province, constituting one percent of Uzbek territory but home to nine percent of its population, has seen since October 2003. In one demonstration in November, more than 600 women blocked three main roads of the town at the same time. Rallies organised by women in similar circumstances to Sanobar have been combined with protests about unpaid salaries and pensions. The demonstrations tend to end with local authorities assuring the women their problems will be addressed. But according to Sanobar, nothing has changed. “We had to use our last chair as firewood to spend New Year's Day in some kind of warmth," she told IRIN. “We cannot use our electric heating because electricity is cut off very often. Now we are forced to use old rubber shoes instead of firewood. We have no money to buy firewood or other fuel," she added. HEALTH CRISIS IN THE COLD Last year, her 24-year-old son Abdulla, died of tuberculosis. He contracted the disease while serving a seven year sentence in prison for stealing vegetable oil. Before he died, he infected his younger brother Abdurasul. The disease proved highly contagious between family members, as they sleep so closely together during cold winters. Another son suffers from asthma. A medical source in the Ferghana Valley told IRIN that bitter cold drives Uzbek families, traditionally having many children, into one room, with very unhealthy consequences. “It offers no privacy and extremely poor sanitary conditions, which makes them vulnerable to asthma, influenza and other infectious ailments. In rural areas things are even worse. People who cannot afford to buy firewood or fuel burn plastic materials used in cotton cultivation and breath polluted air, ” the source said. DANGER FROM IMPROVISED HEATERS The situation in old Soviet-era apartment blocks, mainly occupied by poor families and pensioners, is just as gloomy during the cold months. Halima Ibragimova, 52, lives with her two daughters in a one bedroom flat in a five-floor Andijan apartment building, where a makeshift gas heater emits poisonous gas as well as presenting a huge fire risk. “The gas is not enough even to boil water to make a tea, so we removed the gas cooker from the kitchen and we're using the gas right out of the main pipe," she told IRIN as she huddled beside the four bricks and rubber hose that serve as a heater. When the electricity is cut off, which occurs at least three times times a day and lasts for hours, they use the gas fire to heat the room. Last year, her 10-month-old grandson died from gas poisoning. This year, the family again risk their lives to survive in these harsh conditions. According to Lutfullo Shamsiddinov, a local human rights activist, people living in such apartments are forced to use extremely dangerous methods of keeping themselves warm with zero safety regulations. “A clear example of that is the 'Tarakan' [Cockroach] gas-furnace that is handmade and very cheap. It burns by sucking the gas from the main pipe and reducing the pressure, which leaves others with no gas," he told IRIN. In many flats, the chimney or flue from these heater feeds directly into the ventilation system of the building, according to residents. “There are many cases of people being poisoned by gas. But these cases are not reported. People are afraid of being fined and their homemade electric or gas heating systems being confiscated by the authorities, he added. Ancient, inefficient and dangerous domestic heating systems are common throughout Central Asia. Cash-strapped local authorities generally have no resources to renew the old heating systems or to properly insulate kilometres of heating pipes connecting the power stations that generate hot water, with domestic consumers. Maintenance staff at the plants grumble about not receiving wages. “Last time we received our salary was in April 2003, we can't even afford to keep our own houses warm," staff at Andijan's central power station told IRIN. GOVERNMENT PROMISES UNMET Uzbek President Islam Karimov visited Andijan in December 2003 to bestow on the province the prestigious Amir Temur award for its contribution to Uzbekistan's economy. During his speech, he said that since Uzbekistan gained independence, the number of households supplied with natural gas in Andijan province had risen from 26 to 70 per cent. But according to observers, often pipe work is in place but there's no gas, so that figure may well be below 45 percent. “We had gas on the day Karimov was in Andijan. As soon as his plane took off the gas was also cut off," Hakimjon, a 72-year-old pensioner, told IRIN. “I would ask them where all the natural gas, which Uzbekistan produces, ends up if I ever was able to meet our officials,” he added. This is what puzzles many poor Uzbeks. The country's annual output stands at more than 50 billion cubic meters, of which about 40 billion cubic meters are consumed domestically, while the rest goes to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia. DIFFICULTY MEETING DEMAND While Uzbekistan's gas exports are modest, they are vital to the neighbouring nations of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. In previous winters, all three countries suffered from intermittent supplies of Uzbek gas due to a combination of debts, politics, and Uzbekistan’s growing domestic needs. According to independent analysts, annual gas shortages are related to the fact that Tashkent prefers to sell gas for hard currency, rather than satisfying its domestic needs. Others say the entire gas supply network needs rebuilding as existing rusty and leaky pipes can never satisfy the power needs of regions like the Ferghana Valley. Currently, households close to main trunk pipes and gas transfer stations enjoy plenty of gas while those further away are forced to cut their fruit trees for firewood in order to keep warm. Meanwhile, Sanobar and her friends are planning their next protest. "Surely it's my human right not to freeze to death? When will the government understand that we are dying here? It's only the middle of January and people here just cannot survive like this," she exclaimed.