Author: Denis Tahiri
It only took one day of rain for the municipality of Shkodra to return to the unsolved problems caused by the floods. The temporary evacuees left their homes. On November 20, the Minister of Defense, Niko Peleshi, asked for the understanding of the citizens for the cases where the power was cut off, as the incidents should have been avoided. But it required maximum commitment for hydrovores. Like his predecessors, Niko Peleshi also blamed the rain. "Here we are at the entrance to Shkodra, at Harku i Bërdica. It rained with very high intensity during yesterday; have been sudden and this has led to the swelling of the streams and the basin of Vau i Deja. During the night, there were some problems with the electricity supply. Here we also have the director of OSHEE, who assures me that all areas are under control and that by the afternoon when the intensity of the rains subsides, we will have a full supply of electricity. The citizens must understand us, because in some areas the supply interruption is done for security reasons, so it is not that there is a lack of energy, but for security reasons, even to avoid any possible danger, the energy is interrupted until the situation calms down". declared Niko Peleshi. Day after day, it was reported how the surface areas of hectares under water were being reduced, but the "scenario" that happened this season is designed for residents who, as soon as the rains start, they evacuate to take shelter in hotels or dormitories.. Everything continues under the whims of time and the flow of the rivers that for decades have been flooding inside hundreds of houses in the entire area of Obot, which for this year, together with the villages of Shirq, Mushan and Dajç, had the same danger for the residents.
We got blocked!
"The flood came suddenly, I don't know, nobody even warned us. The road was blocked for 10 hours, the village was isolated for 5 days. 1000 hectares at least were under water", This is what Arben Ceni, the administrator of the Ana e Mali unit in Shkodër, told "Sinjalizo". The resident adds that he was lucky, since the lake was at a low level. "The discharges were very large, imagine for yourself, the bridge of Baçallek fell", explains in detail Ceni, who counts every damage, the most affected greenhouses.
But according to the administrator, the drains were open and this explains, according to him, the work to minimize the damage. However, the channels did not solve any problems.
"Who would have thought that hydropower plants were full. We thought they were empty and prayed that it would rain so they would be filled, but it backfired on us." he adds.
Meanwhile, Fatmir Fishku, a farmer who has his apartment near a stream that divides the border between Montenegro and Albania, is among dozens of residents whose property was damaged. This stream, residents say, brought not only flows that flooded them, but also an agreement between the two countries, which was never implemented.
"We have a stream near the apartment, but it is an unopened stream. This is a problem raised over time, it was raised both by the former administration of the municipality and by the municipality. But no intervention was carried out", he shows, adding that that stream causes flooding in significant areas that are planted with alfalfa, pomegranates, olives and fruit crops. Resident Fishku took the water from the beehives.
"For the border stream, we have been looking for it for over 7-8 years and as far as I know, the district council and the prefecture have the fund for it." says Ceni. According to the resident, the agreement with the neighbors was for the Montenegrins to cut the vegetation, and the Albanians to open the drains.
Pëllumb Dani, the head of civil emergencies in Shkodër accepts the existence of such an agreement. "As far as I know, such a project has been made by the district council. It's been years in the making. It has been sent to the central institutions and we expect it to be implemented".
The emergency plan was ready, it was not implemented
"The characteristic of these rains was mainly the flooding of mountain streams". Pellumb Dani, head of Civilian Emergencies in the Prefecture of Shkodra, tells "Sinjalizo". He adds that there have been problems from rainfall in the municipality of Vau i Deja, Shkodra and Malësi e Madhe. Meanwhile, for the lower part of Shkodra, Mr. Dani says that this year's flood was not on the scale of other years, where the water covered an area of no more than 2500 hectares. Meanwhile, as for the first, second and third channels, they continue and remain present.
"Even during the September rains, we had flooding problems in the center of the city of Shkodra due to the non-functioning of the collectors and the failure of the municipality to take measures to clean the main wells and collectors, which was repeated during this flood as well. he says, adding that the commitment to clean the canals under the responsibility of the municipalities as well as under the responsibility of the Directorate of Irrigation and Drainage has left much to be desired.
In order to anticipate the emergency situation, according to the law, the prefect must convene the commission every beginning of the season to analyze the expected emergency situations. "At the end of October, we gathered the commission and the focus of the meeting was mainly the measures for the management of seasonal emergencies, which means floods and snowfalls". says Dani, adding that all the representatives of the member institutions have participated and the preparedness plan for floods and winter emergencies has been worked out, and at the same time an order of the prefect has been issued that obliges all structures to manage expected situations.
"This order and this plan means that the prefecture puts all institutions on alert, whether at the local or central level, to wait for emergency situations". he concludes.
To the question of whether measures have been taken by the relevant institutions to avoid the emergency flood situation, he answers that: "For the sake of the truth, they were not taken as they should be, they limped in the activation of the readiness plans, the activation of the resources that each unit has".he says.
Not only Shkodra, but all of Albania is at risk from missing dams and sewers
According to the National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction, the condition of dams, river and sea embankments are amortized. According to this document, which was published on August 2022, of the 626 dams that are currently in our country, 410 of them, or in other words 65%, show significant technical problems and require urgent intervention. Also in this document it is stated that the water drainage has worsened due to the flooding of drainage canals and the reduction of the drainage capacity of hydrovores.
"The situation is expected to worsen further due to climate change, which has been reflected in extreme weather phenomena. it is stated in the National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction document.
According to the strategy, an assessment of the additional flood protection needed in medium and high risk areas should be made and the capacity building of personnel in the structures responsible for irrigation and drainage should be organized.
"Other key measures include the design of school curricula on flood risk, cooperation with neighboring countries regarding floods, increasing the number of experts in the field in local administration, programs to deal with the consequences of flood disasters to minimize risks and related costs. of recovery, case-by-case review of legislation for each building permit and a database for all data related to flood risk",the document states, among other things.
On the other hand, the same document states that out of 850 kilometers of river and sea embankment, about 300 kilometers need repairs, rehabilitation, reconstruction or resizing due to the changes that have occurred in recent decades. "There is also a need for modernization and rehabilitation of weather stations, regular equipment maintenance, reliable internet connections, new qualified staff as well as hydrologists and meteorologists and digitization of data in order to improve Albania's Early Warning System ", is written in the published strategy after several years of absence.
Compensation, something that no one gets
Compensation for the damages is something that the residents hope to receive, but looking at the experience of previous years, the hopes are few.
"Mrs. Spiropali, together with Haki Çako, was delegated with Minister Peleshi for compensation. The Minister of Agriculture, Frida Krifca, did not come, they said that she came somewhere, she gave an interview, but she did not go to the scene. We want reparations, we ask her", testifies for "Sinjalizo", Arben Ceni, not forgetting to add that they received compensation for the last time in 2010.
According to the ICOLD National Register, Albania is in the 20 countries with the largest number of large dams in the world and ranks first in Europe for the number of large dams per 1000 km2 as well as for the number of large dams per 1 million residents.
Meanwhile, in a 2020 report, in addition to the issues highlighted above, it is also noted that "over 95% of the irrigation dams used by the Ministry of Education and Culture and Municipalities do not have monitoring systems in the dams and have not installed alarm systems. They have not prepared any flood map according to the requirements of the legislation in force, with the current conditions of the area below the dams".
According to the same document, in our country there are currently 343 large dams that are used for irrigation and for urban attractions, of which 8 are used by the Ministry of Education and Culture and 335 by the local government, to which they passed with VKM in 2015. In the year 2009, with funding from the World Bank, a study was conducted on the condition of 195 large dams used for irrigation, where 15 of them were rehabilitated, but in no case were dam monitoring systems or alarm systems installed. theirs.
