The other WMD
A dry snow avalanche with a powder cloud
Today is WMD – no, that’s nothing to do with “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, but World Meteorological Day – another one of those special UN Designated Days.
This one was to commemorate the establishment of the World Meteorological Organization in 1950, based on the International Meteorological Organization which was originally founded in Vienna in 1873 to establish networks of meteorological stations, linking them by telegraph and thus helping to improve weather forecasts. The following year, in 1951 it became the UN specialized agency for meteorology, hydrology and related geographical services, and plays an important role in helping to ensure food security, water resources and transport.
Well, the weather here has finally started to behave itself. After a long and cold winter, it actually started to feel like Spring had finally arrived. Here, Spring is deemed to start on March 1st, and although we had a warmish spell a week ago, a cold snap last weekend meant that snow was still around for the Norus holiday on Wednesday, March 21st, (which, back in Britain, we reckon to be the first day of Spring).
Mind you, the temperatures had already started to return to normal and during the mid-afternoon, when I walked out in the yard at the back of the office, I was greeted by loud crashes as blocks of snow and ice fell off the roof. It was driving Vasya, (one of the kittens), into a perplexed frenzy of darting this way and that in order to avoid the next downpour.
I was supposed to be meeting an American for dinner that evening, but he had gone up to Naryn for the weekend and was apparently stuck up there. He sent me a message in the morning to say that he wasn’t sure if he would be able to make it as he had been “snowed in” and that although some people were making the journey, it didn’t sound too safe and he wasn’t sure whether he would make it.
He had a point.
Over the weekend there was a report of 20 yaks being buried in Tajikistan; Yaks – animals that normally thrive in high mountainous regions and are especially adapted as a species for living in harsh conditions.
They weren’t the only animals to be caught up in the harsh conditions … another article reported that over 17o animals, (sheep, cattle and horses), had been buried under snow in the Chon Alai region of Osh oblast. Then, yesterday it was reported that almost 2000 livestock died in Batken due to a lack of feed as a result of the prolonged winter and recent heavy snowfalls.
A series of avalanches, fell on the main Bishkek-Osh road. One of them was some 3600 cubic meters of snow and trapped seven people. Four of them were rescued by a team from the town of Toktogul but unfortunately three people weren’t so lucky and their bodies were recovered later. Another avalanche in the same region trapped another person.
Just before the holiday, two more people died as another avalanche buried two fuel tankers a lorry belonging to the Ministry of Defence and 4 cars; ten other people were rescued.
In another incident, about a hundred vehicles were stuck on the Ton Murun pass on the Osh-Sary Tash-Irkeshtam road in Southern Kyrgyzstan. Food and emergency supplies were distributed, to stranded drivers and to some of the local communities. Although workers from the Ministry of Emergency Services worked to clear the road, but were hampered by the weather conditions and poor state of some of their equipment. It seems that just a couple of hours after they cleared the road, the snow storm had blocked the road again.
It was reported that in the Chon Alai region of Osh oblast – all the roads were blocked by snow … “Ground transportation links are gone”, reported the Deputy Minister for Emergency Situations.
Workers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations were having more luck working to clear the Bishkek-Osh road. All the same, the authorities decided to close the road from nine o’clock in the morning until midnight. (Apparently, avalanches mainly occur mainly in the mornings but can continue and occur at any time during the day.) The restrictions are likely to be in place until the end of the month. It’s being reported that the meteorologists expect the avalanche season to peak in the near future.
Apparently there have been almost fifty avalanches since the beginning of the year – twenty three of them since the middle of March. That 3600 cubic meters avalanche was just a fraction of the three hundred and fifty thousand cubic meters that have fallen. Most of those have “forced avalanches”, produced by over 350 explosions set off to create them.
The emergency services have set up feeding stations and some prefabricated housing has been sent to one of the affected villages down South. For the future, it has been suggested that a network of emergency housing be constructed at strategic points on the main highways.
President Atambaev is currently out of the country on an official visit but he managed to send his condolences to the families affected by the avalanches. Babanov, the Prime Minister also left Bishkek for a while, in order to pay to pay a visit to the village of Nura in the South; one of the worst hot by avalanches. Having given instructions to each of the Deputy Ministers in the Transport Ministry to take personally take charge of the relief and clearance measures on particular routes around the country, he wanted to see for himself how things were being handled.
Naryn has been cut off by avalanches before. I have never been stranded there even though I go up to Naryn every month, but we’ve had clients who have been.
As it happens, my friend didn’t make it back to Bishkek in time and we arranged to take a “rain check” and have dinner over the weekend. What’s more, the group he had been with had planned to cross over Torugart to China … and the road to Torugart was also closed by an avalanche. That means they had to change their plans.
As it happens, we have another, fairly big, group also planning to go over the pass in the near future. To make matters worse, they are planning to cross with their own vehicles which somewhat limits their options for changing plans. We did warn them of the risks, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.
See also: Avalanches
Bishkek