Rising waters, rising hopes: President Tokayev visits flood-affected West Kazakhstan region

In the face of devastating floods sweeping through the West Kazakhstan Region, communities band together. As people lost their homes, authorities and the public rally to provide immediate relief and support to those in the thick of this environmental crisis. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev arrived in the West Kazakhstan region on a working visit on April 4 to personally oversee how the region is handling the aftermath of floods, Kazinform News Agency correspondent reports.

Earlier, emergency regime has been declared in the region which faced the harsh floods aftermath. Local people lost shelters, household and livestock,

The President saw the situation first hand. He flew over the flooded areas in the region and got briefed on the situation in Terektinskiy, Syrymskiy and Karatobinskiy districts.

The region’s governor Nariman Turegaliyev told the President that six districts of the region and Uralsk city, the region’s administrative center, remain flooded. The flood affected 552 residential houses and 427 suburban plots. Around 7,000 people are evacuated. The local budget has already allocated 63 million tenge (US$141,203) for provision of one-time financial support to the victims.

As of today, more than 1,000 people have been accommodated in the temporary evacuation centers. President Tokayev visited one of them and supported people affected from the flood. He assured that the state will offer financial and material support as people faced huge losses. More than 1,500 cattle died during floods in the West Kazakhstan region.

A total of 1,911 people, 332 pieces of equipment, 101 motorized pumps and 1 helicopter are involved in flood control operations. Local emergencies continue works of pumping out water, fencing the sites with soil and expanding culverts. Rescuers from Almaty and Mangistau regions are also involved in the effort.

As for situation in the country, activities for liquidation of the floods aftermath has been processing in the affected regions across the country. Emergency agencies monitor the flood situation on rivers and reservoirs by means of aerial and drone surveys. In some regions, blasting operations have been carried out to prevent ice blockages.

To date, across the country, 18,945 people were rescued and evacuated, including 8,202 children. Since the beginning of the flood in Aktobe, Kostanai, Atyrau, Akmola, Pavlodar, West Kazakhstan regions, 1,043 private residential houses and 298 yard territories remain flooded.

Local executive bodies maintain communication with 63 locations that were left without transport communication. The necessary stocks of food and medicines have been created by joint efforts.

Amanbek Ramazanov, a hydrotechnical engineer, considers that preparing for floods plays a significant role in preventing the situation. He named two major drawbacks of local authorities in preventing spring floods.

As for the first drawback, we do not start preparing for floods until the end of winter. Unfortunately, this is very late; it is impossible to prevent natural disasters in this way. And as for the second drawback, we are not prepared for the challenges of climate change, he said.

Amirkhan Kenshimov, veteran of water management and engineer and hydro technician, associated the floods with the impact of climate change and global warming. According to him, the country needs to train professionals and open water management institutions to avoid floods that occur every spring.

The expert says that before independence, Kazakhstan had a ministry of water management.

There are no specialists left to consult with. And today water is overflowing and all the plains are flooded. To prevent this from happening again in the future, we need to train good water specialists and allocate large funds for this. We need to open special water management institutions. Only then will we gradually get rid of the problem of annual flooding. It will not be possible to solve this issue instantly, Kenshimov said.

A considerable number of people have been affected by the floods in the region. And it is not only about financial losses but more about losses of properties and shelters that ordinary people built by their own means.

The support and involvement coming from the President and ordinary people harbors optimism. Yet experts agree the natural disaster could have been avoided if preliminary measures had been taken on time and advice of specialists had not been ignored.