Several people died after snowslips in Kyrgyzia

An extraordinary session of Kyrgyzia’s government on the abundant snowfalls that came down to the southern part of the country, took place in Bishkek. First deputy chairman of the government Nikolay Tanayev on his arrival from the Osh region told that snow heaps had completely blocked the highway from Kara-Kuldzha to Kok-Art. Ten snowslips came down over the last days. The snow layer on the highways is about 1.5-2 meters. As the traffic has been stopped, it is impossible to get to some settlements. Communication lines and electric power supply have been damaged in several remote places. But what is the worst in the case, six people died and several were taken to hospitals after coming down of a large snowslip near the settlement of Oi-Tal.

Subdivisions of the Ministry for ecology and emergency situations were the first to start liquidation of the disaster. To restore communication with the center, over 80 kilometers of highways were cleared of about 1 million cubic meters of snow.

The government decided to attract not only power engineers and road workers to the areas, but even troops. Reserve funds provided necessary petrol and diesel oil, wires and transformers for heat supply reconstruction were delivered to the accident site.

The problem is, such snowslips come down in the area every year. They are not usually so big as this year, but rather enough to break normal living conditions. It was also mentioned at the government’s session. Special attention is to be paid to prevention of natural disasters in the region. But the recent snowslip turned out to be unexpected as meteorologists had forecasted warm weather for beginning of December. Snowfalls also caused some damage to the capital of Kyrgyzia, Bishkek. For two days traffic has been paralyzed in the city. When such disasters occur at the beginning of winter, some more, even grave ones can be expected in the future. We would like to believe, next time grave consequences and victims will be avoided.

Yury Razgulyayev PRAVDA.Ru Bishkek Kyrgyzia

Translated by Maria Gousseva