Kyrgyz Quake Victims Condemn Government Response

Recent earthquakes in southern Kyrgyzstan, which caught the local population unprepared, have raised fears that authorities are turning a blind eye to warnings from scientists about the scale of the danger facing the country.



The latest quakes rocked the southern city of Osh on December 26 and early on January 1. The second tremor occurred just after midnight as people were celebrating New Year.



“People didn’t know what to do,” local journalist Bekbolot Ibraimov told IWPR. “There was no information on TV or radio, even though the tremors were extensive and recurred for hours. They sparked incredible rumours and panic.”



What angered some experts is that scientists predicted these quakes months ago and notified the authorities. They say warnings went unheeded.



“We notified the government there would be earthquakes at the start of 2008 in Osh and Jalalabad though we didn’t know the exact day,” recalled Kanat Abdrahmanov, director of the Kyrgyz Institute of Seismology.



He claims the authorities took little notice. “For some reason, only non-government organisations and foundations like the Red Cross are making any preparations for natural disasters. It has not become a matter of state,” he told IWPR.



“Yet our country is part of a region that has always experienced earthquakes, and they will certainly recur in future.”



Seismologists are relieved that the quakes in southern Kyrgyzstan over the New Year were not more serious. Registering six points on the Richter scale, they caused no fatalities.



But thousands of people lost their homes or were forced to abandon cracked dwellings.



HOUSES OF CARDS



The extensive damage to buildings in Osh highlighted another aspect of Kyrgyzstan’s lack of preparedness – the government’s failure to inspect newly-constructed buildings for safety.



“It all shows how poor the quality of construction is, especially in the Osh region - that after moderate earthquakes, buildings did not survive but collapsed,” noted Abdrahmanov.



“That’s a bad sign. If there is an eight- or nine-point earthquake, there will be human casualties.”



Seismologists have forecast increased seismic movement in 2008 and 2009 and a wave of more powerful activity in the period from 2011 to 2013.



Experts accuse the government of ducking the issue by placing all the responsibility for making preparations on the shoulders of a single all-purpose ministry, the Ministry for Emergency Situations.



They say that the ministry is too small to handle so many tasks and has too few resources.



“The state must adopt a long-term programme to prepare people over the next three to five years,” said Abdrahmanov. “Even without investing a lot financially, they can at least teach people to secure their houses using simple materials.”



QUAKE DANGER EXTENDS TO NORTH KYRGYZSTAN



Scientists are concerned with the effects of seismic activity not only in the south but in the north, too, including the capital Bishkek. The problem of illegal, unsafe structures is acute in the capital, where anything between 200,000 and 500,000 squatters are thought to live.



According to Abdrahmanov of the seismology institute, 90 per cent of these illegal structures would not survive a six- or seven-point earthquake.



NGOs working with squatters and migrants know that many of their homes are unsafe.



Rahila Jusupova, leader of the NGO Er Ayim, says squatters in Ak-Orgo, a new residential district, told him they were building houses with cheap adobe because they lacked the money for bricks, concrete and cement.



“These houses will not survive powerful earthquakes,” predicted Jusupova. “I am afraid they could collapse like a pack of cards.”



The problem of rickety buildings is not confined to poor squatter’s homes in the Bishkek suburbs, however.



Architects and safety experts suspect many of the gleaming new tower blocks erected recently in the city centre are also suspect in safety terms.



“In Soviet times, the construction inspectorate would come to check the quality of reinforcement and concrete every two days, but today buildings are built within two weeks,” complained Abdrahmanov.



TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE



Meanwhile, the arguments continue over the speed and effectiveness of the government’s response to the most recent quakes.



Bakyt Jolchiev, deputy minister for emergency situations, says the ministry was put on high alert. “Teams of 15-16 people worked daily to assess the level of damage, while countries like Italy, Sweden and Russia provided us with humanitarian aid,” he said.



But some victims say the delivery of aid was far from transparent or effective. They are especially unhappy that people left homeless were given only light summer tents to sleep in despite the winter cold.



It took two weeks for the government to come up with only a million soms - around 28,000 US dollars - in financial aid for the quake victims.



Marzia-Apa, 59, one of the quake victims from the village of Karasogot, said she was disappointed.



“It’s impossible to live in tents when it is freezing,” she pointed out. “They gave us electric heaters but there’s no electricity in the villages, so these heaters won’t save us.”



In any case, she said, “Tents and heaters are not the solution. The government should have set aside proper accommodation for quake victims in advance.”



Others hit by the quakes complained of a lack of transparency in the distribution of foreign aid.



“People say foreign planes with humanitarian aid were sent but no one knows how many items we are supposed to get, how many were distributed, or how many things were in there [the planes],” another quake victim told IWPR. “There’s been no transparency.”



The same person added, “There is a shortage of tents, and in any case, children and women shouldn’t be living in tents in winter.



“Only now do they start showing on TV what people should do during earthquakes, but this should have been done before New Year and not after the disaster.”



MORE QUAKES ON THE WAY



Vladimir Mokrousov of the emergency ministry’s forecasting department agrees that the south may be in for a rough ride over the next few years.



“The forecasts predict a continuation of seismic activity in 2008 and 2009,” he told IWPR. “Again, the most dangerous districts are in the southern part of the country like the Batken and Osh regions, and especially those districts of Batken region that border Tajikistan.”



Mokrousov agreed that earthquakes may strike other parts of the country. But he insisted that the ministry did not have the resources to make large-scale preparations such as contingency plans for the mass resettlement of people. “Such work is already being done but it is not constant,” he admitted.



Taalaibek Temiraliev, head of the ministry’s external relations, says the country remains dependent on continuing flows of foreign aid merely to cope with the after-effects of the recent quakes, let alone prepare for new ones.



“The list of people who suffered currently stands at 1,020 families but this number is growing as experts continue to visit every village and evaluate the situation,” he said.



“We are having to tell people that it’s dangerous to remain in their damaged houses, as these will collapse if there is another earthquake, and they will be buried alive for days.”



Temiraliev said the ministry was in direct contact with international organisations. Austria and Slovakia had already sent 45 warm tents and a thousand sets of clothing, while the United Nations had sent another 120 winter tents and Sweden and Bulgaria had also sent aid.



The ministry had been the first institution to respond to the crisis, delivering warm clothes, foodstuff, mattresses, blankets and sleeping bags, he maintained, “but the number of victims is growing, so the need for aid is also growing”.



He accepted that the ministry was not providing everyone with all the help they needed, but insisted this was also the responsibility of local authorities, including provincial governors and local councils.



Other officials within the ministry are now calling for additional preventive measures, such as the introduction of affordable building insurance schemes.



Anaraly Sydykov, head of the ministry’s department for dealing with emergencies, said that the State Agency for Architecture and Construction must first complete an assessment of the damage, and then the government would need to decide on the next steps.



“We will need money,” he said. “It’s always difficult to get funding at the start of the year, but only when we have it can we start building proper facilities such as schools, hospitals and houses that meet construction standards.”



He also called for an insurance scheme, saying, “Today the entire population lives in uninsured houses and some of these have been built illegally.”



“We should not have allowed so many new residential areas to be built in Bishkek, or at least should have obliged the State Agency for Architecture to develop solid plans… God forbid that something should happen, because all the houses in the new residential areas will collapse.”



Nikolay Baylo, a Communist legislator, accused the government of dithering in a debate in parliament on January 11.



“Despite all the warnings of scientists about a possible earthquake in Osh, the government was busy with politics,” he said. “It also turned out the Ministry of Emergencies didn’t have a single winter tent for the eventuality of a natural disaster happening during the cold season.”



Marzia-Apa hopes officials will be better prepared in future, though she is far from confident that they will.



“We could at least prepare for natural disasters,” she said, “though only Allah knows when floods or landslides will happen. Thanks to Allah, we are all alive, if homeless.”



Tolkun Namatbaeva is an IWPR contributor in Bishkek.