US soldiers joined Ethiopian flood emergency efforts
Aug 19, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA ) — US soldiers joined emergency efforts to assist tens of thousands of Ethiopians hit by devastating flash floods that have killed hundreds across the nation this month.
With rescue operations continuing apace in the flood-ravaged south, where at least 364 people have died in the past week and up to 8,000 are still marooned, US naval engineers began relief work in the inundated east, officials said Saturday.
The troops from the US military base in nearby Djibouti arrived in the town of Dire Dawa, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of Addis Ababa where 256 people were killed and more than 6,000 left homeless in floods on August 6.
A team of 35 so-called “Seabees” brought with them 52 large tents to house many of the displaced, and equipment to construct sanitation facilities amid growing fears of the spread of water-borne disease among the survivors.
The Djibouti-based Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa said its initial aid was worth 900,000 dollars (700,000 euros) but stressed it was ready to increase its assistance and expand work to other areas.
“CJTF-HOA is poised to provide additional relief assistance at the request of the Ethiopian government,” it said in a statement.
Dire Dawa and its environs were the first to be struck by a series of fatal flash floods in the east, north and south of the impoverished country, spawned by unusually heavy seasonal rains that caused rivers to burst their banks.
Heavy downpours continue in the Ethiopian highlands, sending water levels higher, and on Friday at least 15,000 people were left homeless in an area between Dire Dawa and capital when the Awash River overflowed, officials said.
In addition to the human deaths and property destruction that has wreaked havoc with farmland, thousands of valuable livestock have been washed away in the east, south and north, where at least six people have been killed.
The confirmed national death toll is hovering at 626, but aid workers and local authorities are bracing for a sharp rise in that figure as hundreds are unaccounted for and many areas remain unreachable.
Some 73,000 people have been affected by the floods, according to the United Nations, but the situation is perhaps most dire in the remote southwest, where more than half of that total live and poor weather is hampering relief work.
Between 5,000 and 8,000 people are still stranded in 14 submerged villages in the Omo River valley, where airborne search and rescue teams have been plucking survivors from roofs and tree tops and dropping food and clean water.
“There are areas that rescuers have not yet reached and we believe the death toll is far higher than what is being said,” said Nakia Arkosie, a member of parliament from South Omo, while touring a temporary camp in Sodo.
Major Solomon Gebere Michael, commander of the Ethiopian army’s operation in the Southern Nationalities, Nations and People’s state, his teams had to rescue another 100 people late Friday but shared concerns the toll would rise.
“People insist the death toll is much higher,” he told AFP.
Ethiopia’s meteorological agency warned this week that six areas in the north, west and south of the country would likely be affected by unusually heavy seasonal rains before the end of the month.
The rainy season lasts from June to September.
Ethiopia has repeatedly suffered heavy floods and droughts in recent years, devastating agriculture that provides a livelihood for the majority of the 70 million people living in this Horn of Africa nation.
(ST/AFP)