The Country Fraught with Disasters

At a press conference on the unprecedented flood in six regions of Ukraine, Emergency Management Minister Volodymyr Shandra asked journalists “not to politicize the situation.”

Large-scale disasters have one thing in common: they make people look soberly at long-ignored issues and say to themselves: that’s it! In 1986 the Chornobyl disaster exposed the mendacity and rottenness of Soviet society. After Chornobyl, the final collapse of the communist empire was just a matter of time. Perhaps the Carpathian flood will help Ukrainian society to see the underlying causes of elemental and man-made disasters that occur more and more frequently. Today the Man Upstairs pours the sky down on the Carpathians; tomorrow an accident may hit the mineral-extracting areas utterly exhausted and abused by man; next day Kyiv or another big city may see the end of its public utilities infrastructure, which was squandered and ruined in the recent years. Perhaps, then the people will remember the Carpathian flood as a prelude… This country is fraught with disasters and it cannot be otherwise.

Here is just one episode from the Ukrainian parliament’s lawmaking record – a debate on the sum to be spent on natural disasters. Some MPs proposed to allocate 70 million towards preventing such disasters and 280 million towards eliminating their sizeable consequences. Others proposed to spend 280 million on prevention and 70 million on elimination. The latter idea was more logical: it would be better to spend more on preventing disasters so as not to have to deal with their consequences. Which proposal do you think collected more votes?

The first

Sources close to the lawmaking kitchen explain: “Our decision-makers think this way: the first version of the bill provides less money for reinforcing dams, purchasing vehicles and equipment and other things that can be measured and calculated (and so can’t be stolen). So it’s better to allocate the larger sum for ‘eliminating consequences’ because it’s a lot more difficult to control such spending…”

Now let us look at the situation with “economic eyes.” Take, for instance, the long-standing disputes concerning the navigation canal in the Ukrainian part of the mouth of the Danube. Romania built a stationary canal and forgot about the problem. The National Science Academy of Ukraine insisted on building a similar canal, but the government decided to deepen the constantly silted Bystre branch despite protests from environmentalists and the Romanian government. There is no need to explain why. Now dredgers work in the Danube mouth every year, literally burying millions of dollars in the silt. Whenever a technical decision has to be made, the optimal solution never matters. The choice is always made in favor of the project that can launder more money…

It looks like natural and man-made disasters are going to become an uncontrollable and very profitable business in this country. In the 17 years of Ukraine’s modern history, none of its governments has offered an accident prevention concept. The Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Emergency Situations Management have never even raised the issue. Ukraine is absolutely defenseless against disasters. The Ministry of Housing and Public Utility Services is drafting a plan to save this sector from total collapse, but the parliament will hardly take it on until the next presidential election.

The flood has shown the utter ineptitude of all agencies: according to reports from each flood-hit region, the local residents had not been warned in time and relief operations were organized and coordinated very poorly. The locals say that in the Soviet times they felt more protected in emergencies like this.

Emergency Situations Management Ministry officials do their best to downplay the scale of the disaster, understating the number of victims. Still, it is bigger than in the flood-hit regions of the neighboring countries. Those who live close to the Romanian border say that on the other side authorities cope with such emergencies much more effectively. After the previous floods they built high dikes, so their villages were safe while the flood was washing away Ukrainian houses. The unfortunate people are outraged by the snail-slow rescue operations. The Ukrainian leaders know very well that NATO forces are well-equipped and trained for such operations, but it took them several days to ask the alliance for help! They did not even specify what equipment or materials were needed…

On the other hand, a broad popularization campaign launched by the mass media rather resembles a pre-election show in which candidates for the post of the president demonstrate their “care for the citizens.” It is shameless PR exploiting people’s personal tragedies.

The press conference with the Minister of Emergency Situations Volodymyr Shandra didn’t ensure us that this department is ready to seriously analyze the causes of the disaster in the western regions of Ukraine. A ZN journalist met with Volodymyr Mykolayevych hoping that the Ministry of Emergency Situations at least has some plans regarding protection of the citizens from future natural disasters.

— Volodymyr Mykolayevych, watching the administration eliminating the consequences of the disasters that have begun to occur in Ukraine with increasing frequency, I would like to ask the following question: do our leaders realize the potential danger of natural disasters in our country?

—The recent budget reading in the Verkhovna Rada, for instance, showed that our parliamentarians do not fully realize this. They expressed their stance on such problems when discussing financing of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

—…?

— I have elaborated a strategic aim for the Ministry of Emergency Situations: our employees should become full-fledged rescuers and not just firemen. They should be able to provide qualified help in different difficult situations such as landslides, gas explosion, floods and even during traffic accidents in which the Ministry of Emergency Situations is engaged. That’s why the development of our department is important since it is the force that should react to different unforeseeable situations and ensure citizens’ safety.

— We have trouble in western Ukraine today. However, we shouldn’t forget about eastern regions of Ukraine. For example, specialists persistently warn of the danger that the considerable dislocation of the ground holds for Kryviy Rih with its overloaded mining industry. Many other industrial centers are also in great danger since their housing and utilities sectors are worn out; the housing and utilities sector in Kyiv is overloaded because of the compact building taking place. Does your Ministry have any strategic plans for the regions?

— At the moment, the state sees our Ministry as a department that should react to what has already happened. We don’t have sufficient authority to carry out more complicated tasks such as disaster prevention. Furthermore, we don’t have any standby fund which could enable us to start promptly working in a crisis situation without asking for money from anybody. For instance in Russia, the Ministry of Emergency Situations has a financial reserve for 72 hours and is able to start working immediately.

In Ukraine, the existing fund is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Economy and it is hard to get the money in short order due to complicated bureaucratic procedures. However, in emergency situations, it is necessary to make the decisions immediately and allocate the rescuing forces in two-three hours.

— TV programs showed victims of the flood saying that they were not alerted beforehand, that their radio was silent and TV wasn’t working as there was no electricity in the villages. Why couldn’t representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations take helicopters and warn the people in time?

— We faced with a typical situation in many villages when people were not willing to abandon their houses, leave their animals and farms. Our specialists had a lot of additional problems because people believed till the last moment that water wouldn’t flood their houses. People mentioned that such a disaster had previously never befallen them.

Incidentally, we don’t have the right to forcibly evacuate people: if the person doesn’t want to leave, we may only try to convince him or her. It is not surprising that journalists came upon cases when people complained that they had not been alerted. This once again confirms the fact that our rescuers’ work is not only dangerous but also stressful.

People quite often don’t believe till the last moment that disaster is coming. And then, when the worst has happened, they point the finger at us: “Why didn’t you warn us? You said the water would rise by 50 centimeters and it rose by 70!” Certainly, I agree that the system of warning people in emergency situations is not set right yet. We will try to improve. However, I would like to ask the journalists to ascertain the truth before broadcasting or publishing the facts. The rescuers are offended that their heroic and poorly remunerated work is not appreciated.

— Do you coordinate your efforts with other ministries and departments?

— We quite closely cooperate with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Fuel and Energy Ministry, Oblenergo and Gazoblenergo, municipal services. Now, we are bringing to the forefront cooperation with sanitary service to control the epidemic situation in the regions affected by the disaster.

I would like emphasize the following: our Ministry should develop and execute strategic tasks and prevent disasters. We shouldn’t be just a first aid service. However, we should have enough authority to prevent such problems. Yes, we have some authority in the sphere of fire safety. This is good, but this is not enough. There are man-made threats, in prevention and elimination of which the Ministry of Emergency Situations should take an active role. Monitoring of probable natural disasters could give positive results. For example, we could check the safety of dams to see if they will be able to sustain disasters.

— And who will deal with those (very wealthy) people that build houses at the Dnieper banks in the 100 meters-zone, pick out shingles from the bottoms of mountain rivers and take sand from the beaches for construction of their villas… One of the ecology ministers promised ZN to destroy all houses at the Dnieper banks built in violation of existing laws. Since he made this promise, none of the houses at the banks were demolished and a lot of new houses appeared instead. It is time to establish order in this sphere, isn’t it?

— This is beyond our responsibilities. These matters fall under the Environmental Ministry’s responsibilities. It issues licenses on sand and loam production.

There is a problem with salvage services. For the time being, we are able to carry out salvage services thanks to efforts of our workers since it is impossible to work sufficiently with equipment that is more than 30 years old. Our equipment works only because our employees have magical hands. Our state has survived the trying 90s, and today, the economic situation has improved so it is possible to finance the development of this sphere. Then, we would be able to train and equip the troops of the Ministry of Emergency Situations in accordance with European standards.

I hope that the Ukrainian Army won’t have occasion to be at war in the nearest future. However, we can’t get away from natural disasters. That’s why it is necessary to pay much more attention to rescuers and their equipment today.

We shouldn’t undervalue this profession. It is as important as the profession of a doctor.

Zakarpattia flood

This is the third time that Zakarpattia has suffered from excessive flooding. The first two times – in November 1998 and in March 2001 – floods caused considerable damage and claimed 30 lives. The recent disaster was less powerful and thus caused less damage in Zakarpattia than in neighboring Lviv region, Bukovina and Prykarpattia.

Delovoye Settlement stands on the bank of the river Tisa, channel of which is a border between Ukraine and Romania. The Ukrainian bank is steep and is about three meters high. Today, several days after the disaster, it is hard to believe that a small mountain river could rise so high, but the tops of the nearby trees covered with silt indicate that the water rose much higher – about five meters, and it took the water less than two hours to flood the entire district of Delovoye – Khemelev.

“The water flooded 34 of 150 houses in Khemelev,” says chairman of Delovoe village council Lyudmila Romanyuk. “Gardens are practically destroyed; food products stored in the cellars are spoiled. Many people think that it was possible to avoid such sad consequences. The road construction services gathered gravel and sand in the place where river Visheva flows into Tisa for construction of a highway from Mukachevo to Rohatin. This disrupted the channel of the river and considerably increased amount of water that flowed to the Romanian village on the other bank. Incidentally, the Romanians have got high dams on their side. That’s why their villages were not very much damaged when our villages were destroyed. After the first two floods, we asked the local and state bodies of power to construct dams around our village. However, this costs a lot of money and no one is going to allot them.”

One more peculiarity of Zakarpattia compared to neighboring regions is that after the first two floods, people started to insure their property from natural disasters. In Khmelev village, 22 of 34 flooded houses were insured. Although, this won’t help much. Local farmers are not rich and UAH 100 per year as an insurance fee is a quite serious sum of money for them. That’s why they will receive quite small insurance payments.

The total sum of damage caused by the disaster has yet to be established, but it is clear that the infrastructure of Zakarpattia mountain villages suffered most of all – most bridges and roads are destroyed. Reconstruction works have started immediately after the flood; in most critical territories the works are taking place 24 hours. According to experts, it will be possible to reconstruct most important roads and bridges during the first two months, but it will take around two years to restore the entire infrastructure…

Dniester’s flood

The Lviv region had just recouped after a serious storm when a new disaster struck – a flood. This time, the disaster took place in other parts of the region. The Prykarpattia section of Lviv region – Skolovskiy, Zhydachevskiy, Starosamborskiy, Turkovskiy and a few more districts – were the hardest hit by the flood.

The water has already receded and the consequences of the flood are seen very clear: spoiled vegetables, destroyed roads and bridges. Only in Skolovskiy district, local governments are reconstructing seven bridges to restore automobile access to nearby localities.

The Skolovskiy district suffered from the overflow of Carpathian rivers. For instance, in the territory between rivers Sykil and Svicha the water rose by 1.5 meters, spanning several square kilometers. Three days of high water was enough to destroy crops.

The citizens of surrounding villages suffered the most: the water destroyed anti-flood barriers constructed in Soviet times. The Mlyninsk village of Zhydachev district was one of them. According to preliminary evaluations, damage from the natural disaster is estimated to constitute around UAH 340-400 million.

According to Ivan Kovalchuk, head of the geodesy department of the National agrarian university of Ukraine, the flood may threaten the entire region. Practically all of the Dniester valley between the mountains and Mykolaiv periodically gets flooded. This will happen until the correlation between agricultural fields and forests and meadows is optimized. According to the Lviv city council, it is necessary to develop and adopt a state and regional program on anti-flood measures for Ivano-Frankovsk, Lviv and Chernovitsk regions for 2008-2012. One of its items concerns the implementation of a unique project on accumulating the water in the flood-plains of Dniester river. Construction of the object would enable to lower the level of the flood-wave in the Dniester basin by 2-3 meters. Approximate cost of the project is around UAH 80 million. It is dozens of times less than damages caused by the disaster on July 24-27.

According to Mykola Kmytia, acting chairman of the regional administration, it is necessary to thoroughly examine the territories to lead the water to flood not the buildings but meadows. However, this problem should be solved by consolidated efforts. Today, forestry specialists are concerned about forests only, and water specialists – by anti-flood dams. There will be real results only if the entire host of problems is considered by the relevant state bodies.

Life after Armageddon

Terrible flood, that took place in western parts of Ukraine on July 25-26, affected also the Ternopol region. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 26 localities are flooded in four districts of the Ternopol region; water flowed into more than 600 houses and flooded 10 thousand hectares of farm-lands. Rescuers of the Ministry of Emergency Situations evacuated 1709 people from the Ternopol region. Fortunately, unlike in Bukovina and Prykarpattia, the disaster didn’t claim any lives in Ternopol region.

On Friday, July 25, the level of water in Dniester near the village Ust-Zelene in Monastyrskiy district went up by 6 meters, broke the dam and flooded 103 houses and many household buildings.

Head of Ust-Zelene village council Vasyl Nych says: “I don’t have any serious claims concerning the rescuers’ work: they carried out their duties, warned about the rising water in Dniester, evacuated people, provided people with drinking water. Although there wasn’t enough boats for transporting the people. I would like to note that after the flood thirty years ago, the state allocated a lot of boats and one armored troop-carrier for evacuation of the people. In Soviet Union, the rescue works were organized much better than today. It is necessary to improve the system of warning: people should be alerted at least 24 hours before disaster so they could take not only documents and money but also some other valuable things.”

The words of the head of the village council could be a good task for our government and profile committees on improvement of our rescue services.