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Floods

Ethiopia's Floods & Dams: A response to Spiked

By: 
Terri Hathaway

Spiked and others are calling attention to the heavy floods in Ethiopia which now threaten 270,000 people. Regional authorities and humanitarian partners including World Vision, CARE, Food for the Hungry International (FHI), Save the Children-UK, Concern, OCHA, WFP UNICEF and the Ethiopian Red Cross Society are among those involved in flood relief efforts. Supporting these humanitarian agencies supports the urgent needs of Ethiopia's flood victims in this time of crisis. 

Ethiopia's boom and bust rain cycles are notorious for their role in Ethiopia's extreme poverty. But dams are not a flood control panacea. Current flooding in Afar is attributed in part to the overflowing of the Tendaho Dam, which was completed less than two years ago. The dam's overflow has damaged 18 km of its irrigation canal and 4,000 hectares of farms and grazing lands. Overflowing of the dam and the Logia River has directly displaced more than 15,000 people.

A Flood of Dam Safety Problems

by Lori Pottinger

The catastrophic flooding in Pakistan provides a terrifying warning of how global warming is changing the hydrological cycle. Almost every month seems to bring unprecedented rainstorms and floods somewhere across the world, and their severity and frequency seems to be rapidly worsening. These floods pose a major threat to the world's dams, and to the many millions of people who live below them. Here we report on a few of the worst examples of dam-induced flooding in recent months.

Indus River Flood: The Fate of Squatter Settlements & Adjacent Villages

by Shahid Ali Panhwer

Affected people with their houses plunged under the flood waters (Shahid Ali Panhwer)

Affected people with their houses plunged under the flood waters (Shahid Ali Panhwer)

Only a few days ago, in the wake of the severe deluge upstream of Kotri Barrage, children swimming and women sponging down clothes on a partially dry passage of the Indus River (Sindhu Daryah) downstream, close to Sehrish Nagar embankment, doled out the delusion that the flood, which had flattened the upper parts of the country and engulfed vast stretches of the province's upstream areas, inflicting huge losses in terms of life and property, was centuries away from their lands.

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Understanding the Flood Disaster at Taunsa Barrage

by Mushtaq Gaadi

Rivers [said 6th century BC Taoist engineer Chia Jang] were like the mouths of infants - if one tried to stop them up they only yelled the louder or were suffocated.
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, 1971

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Floods in Pakistan: Lend a Hand and Learn a Lesson

Exodus in Punjab. (Action Aid)

Exodus in Punjab. (Action Aid)

The floods that are currently ravaging Pakistan have created a human tragedy beyond imagination. At least 1,600 people have lost their lives, 20 million people have been affected, and 4 million people have been left homeless. Many families have lost their whole existence – their homes, fields, crops and cattle – overnight, with no safety net to fall back on. The floods have also washed away schools, health centers, roads and bridges.

No Nordeste, Enchentes Devastadoras Estão Ligadas a Rompimento de Barragens

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By: 
Lilian Alves and Brent Millikan

Este post foi escrito pela Estagiária do Programa da Amazônia Lilian Alves e pelo Diretor do Programa da Amazônia Brent Millikan.

Dam burst on  Mundaú River, Rio Largo town, in the state of Alagoas (Leo Caldas/Revista Veja)

Dam burst on Mundaú River, Rio Largo town, in the state of Alagoas (Leo Caldas/Revista Veja)

O Nordeste do Brasil é conhecido por seus periódicos episódios de seca, que assolam uma população que já sofre com pobreza extrema, especialmente na região do sertão. No entanto, em junho, o Nordeste brasileiro foi atingido por enchentes arrasadoras, deixando mais de 50 vítimas fatais e uma estimativa de 150,000 desabrigados. O centro da tragédia tem sido as bacias dos rios Mundaú e Paraíba nos estados do Alagoas e Pernambuco, onde uma inesperada enchente descomunal, comparada a um tsunami por pessoas da região, devastou cidades, fazendas, pontes e até fábricas. Na cidade de Branquinha, AL, estima-se que 80% das residências foram destruídas.