Natural disasters damage Georgia

Floods cause serious damage in Georgia almost every spring. The melting of the snow in the mountains and the usual spring rains cause floods in different parts of the country. In many places unsystematic and wild cutting of the forests also takes place, without any serious calculation of the consequences, and this also causes floods.

There is no exact calculation of the amount of money the country loses as a result of these floods but it is said to be around USD 300 million. Houses, bridges and roads are destroyed, and what is most tragic, people are killed.

This year, in eastern Georgia in particular, spring was very rainy and practically the entire eastern Georgian agricultural land was deluged with more water than it needed, which eventually damaged the land. No efficient anti-flood plan has been elaborated by the state, no systematic preventive measures are being taken, help only arrives, in a haphazard way, when an area has already been hit by a disaster. The appropriate organisations, most probably the Ministry of the Environment, should develop scientifically approved and expert prepared plans to be implemented all year round, not just in spring when it is already too late.