Recriminations Fly in Wake of Kyrgyz Landslide

A landslide and mudflows in southern Kyrgyzstan have been followed by allegations that the emergencies ministry failed to warn people in time and did not react in time.



The landslide happened in Jalalabad region on the night of April 15-16, and left 16 people dead, 11 of them children, when three houses were devastated in the village of Raykomol.



There are warnings that more casualties could follow in incidents of this kind, as Kyrgyzstan’s mountainous terrain means many people live in areas that could be at risk.



The authorities point out in their defence that some villagers have been advised to relocate to safer places, but have failed to do so.



The landslide followed higher than usual rainfall this spring, which was also the cause of mudflows – torrents of water, earth and debris – which swept away roads, blocked canals and flooded homes in a number of villages in the Batken region on May 5. In the village of Achaluu in neighbouring Osh region, six families lost farm buildings and vegetable plots to a mudslide.



On May 6, the emergencies ministry reported that there had been no casualties in the mudflows.



Janaly Ajiev was lucky to survive the April landslide in Raykomol.



“We heard a sound like thunder during the night and then the room fell in on us,” he recalled. “I couldn’t open the door so I got the children out of the house through the window and took them to my youngest brother’s house further up the village.



“Then I went to see my older brother’s house. My sister lives not far from him, and both their houses had been flattened.”



Ajiev’s sister and her family – 11 people in all – were among the dead.



Raykomol residents say they received no prior warning. Emergency minister Kamchybek Tashiev acknowledged that no warning was given, but he also pointed to the scale of the problem – most of Kyrgyzstan is mountainous terrain, and many settlements are located by hillsides, along rivers and in valleys.



“As minister I take moral responsibility,” he said. “We did not warn these three families. If they’d been warned they might still be alive.”



Isabek Torgoev, who heads the seismic monitoring unit at the Institute for Geomechanics and Mineral Resource Development, said an interview for the Bishkek Press Club that some 10,000 people are living in landslide-prone areas in Kyrgyzstan.



The ministry says there are more than 1,000 families living in areas where there is an immediate or heightened risk of landslide, but a quarter of them have ignored government advice to move. These 260 families were warned of impending disaster and given money and land to resettle, but they remain in their old homes.



According to Tashiev, all too often these people ignore the advice and spend the relocation money on other things.



Experts interviewed by IWPR confirmed that some people continue living in their old houses, sometimes using the relocation money to repair them. Others do move out but come back in spring and summer. Finally, it is common for vacated homes to be occupied by others.



“People are allocated plots of land to build new houses. But because there is so much poverty, as soon as they move out, their relatives occupy the properties,” said Isabek Torgoev, who heads the seismic monitoring unit at the Institute for Geomechanics and Mineral Resource Development.



It does not appear that those who died in the landslide, or lost property in the preceding mudslides, are among those who had been told to move.



Raykomol village head Talant Orozov said the homes devastated by the landslide were not among those considered to be at risk. He said tests had been done elsewhere and people had been moved accordingly.



“No one thought that it would strike here this time,” he said.



Azimbek Beknazarov, a leading opposition politician who heads the Revolutionary Movement of Kyrgyzstan, asks why the homes of people killed in the landslide had not been in the at-risk group.



Beknazarov, who comes from the Aksy district where Raykomol is located, arrived in the village on April 17, the day after the landslide.



He says documents dating from 1998 suggest the part of the village the victims lived in was in fact designated for clearance because of the risks.



At that time, he recalled, “The highest percentage of complaints and requests from my district when I was a [parliamentary] deputy was related to this issue. People were being given papers telling them to move, but it took years to issue them with [relocation] loans and they were forced to go on living in dangerous areas.”



He added, “Our government is always late. If it had foreseen this and taken measures, the tragedy could have been avoided.”



At the same time, Beknazarov noted that many people in southern Kyrgyzstan refused to move out of high-risk areas even after being warned to do so.



“There are a lot of people like that in my home village,” he said. “The emergency ministry needs to keep an eye on them and force them to relocate to safer areas. Many families have taken the money and spent it on other things. Now they remain living in the danger zones, relying on God’s grace and protection.”



The last spate of landslips in southern Kyrgyzstan occurred in 2003 and 2004, when nearly 400 were recorded. Experts say the wet winter and spring may bring another wave of them.



Many recall 2003, when 38 people died in the village of Sogot in Osh region.



According to Tajibay Zulumov, who lives in the neighbouring village of Akterek, “There was a loss in every home, with some losing six family members during the disaster.”



Zulumov recalled that families whose homes and property were destroyed were given new plots of land and money to build houses in the district centre, Uzgen, but many simply went back and patched up their houses.



“They did move to the new location, but not for good,” he said. “They live there [only] during the winter, and they leave at least one family member behind in their old house, because their land is in the village. It’s impossible to keep livestock in the new locations. People who are used to village life find life [in the town] is difficult.”



Sady Kenjebaev, who lost all his family during 2003 tragedy, is a typical example. Despite being given new housing free of charge near Uzgen, he spends the spring and summer months back in Sogot, where he grows potatoes and keeps animals.



“The disaster happened once, and it won’t strike twice. May God preserve us! It’s hard living in town, and I’m not used to it.”



Aziza Abdirasulova, head of the human rights group Kylym Shamy, says the government needs to do more to ease the resettlement process.



“Sometimes it takes them several years to get the loan [due to them],” she said. “The emergencies ministry is responsible for solving problems of this kind, and it needs to become more effective.”



Torgoev stressed the importance of taking preemptive measure before disaster strikes.



“As with other natural disasters, it is easier to prevent landslides than to deal with the consequences,” he said. “Economically, it’s better for the government to spend money on conducting studies in areas prone to landslides and on forecasting the risks than to find the money to rebuild settlements once they’ve been destroyed.”



Chinara Karimova is a pseudonym for a journalist in Kyrgyzstan.