BISHKEK, APRIL 29 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — A landslide in south Kyrgyzstan buried a village, killing 24 people, including nine children.
The landslide has forced the government to explain why more people hadn’t been evacuated from the area around Osh, known to be vulnerable to landslides, after heavy rain.
Landslides are common in Kyrgyzstan, a poor and mountainous country where many people eke out a living from rearing cattle in remote areas.
Pictures from the landslide show a whole section of green hill had given way and crashed into the village of Ayu below.
The Kyrgyz ministry of emergencies, which has previously been criticised for being under-funded and ineffective, said that it had earlier issued warnings to everybody in the village to leave.
Elmira Sheripova, a spokeswoman for the ministry said that a dozen families chose to stay. She explained that families across Kyrgyzstan often refuse to relocate despite warnings from the authorities.
“Families refuse to leave dangerous zones for two reasons,” she said. “First, people say that they have been living in their houses for more than 20 years. Even their parents lived there for many years and nothing dangerous has ever happened. Second, people were not satisfied with the land provided from local governments.”
Nearly 18,000 families in Kyrgyzstan are considered to be living in dangerous area.
Ms Sheripova said that over 11,000 have been resettled from dangerous areas, 4,000 are on a list waiting for land to be allocated to them by local authorities but more than 3,000 have refused to relocate.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 327, published on May 5 2017)