DUSHANBE, 11
February 2008 (IRIN) - Tajikistan is bracing for a
compound humanitarian emergency due to prolonged power
outages, an unusually long period of extremely cold weather,
and resultant emerging food insecurity, according to
officials.
“We’ve had the harshest winter for three decades. It has
frozen inlet streams going into reservoirs which generate
electricity. At the same time there has been an increase in
the consumption of power as a result of the cold weather,”
Michael Jones, UN resident coordinator in Tajikistan, said.
“It is a compound emergency, it is multifaceted,” Jones told
IRIN on 11 February.
For most of January temperatures in the capital, Dushanbe,
have averaged minus 15 degrees during the day and dropped to
as low as minus 25 at night, according to the UN Development
Programme Disaster Risk Management Programme (UNDP DRMP)
Tajikistan.
“The turbines [at hydro-power plants] cannot generate
electricity for Dushanbe and other parts of the country,”
Jones explained. “This has been causing power shortages now
for a prolonged period of time.” According to the UN
Economic Commission for Europe, hydroelectric generation
accounts for 76 percent of total energy output in the
country.
Sharifkhon Samiev, head of Barqi Tojik, the state-controlled
power monopoly, said on 7 February that the country’s energy
sector was facing an emergency situation. As a result, Barqi
Tojik had introduced electricity-rationing across the
country.
“Tajikistan is on the verge of a real humanitarian disaster.
The government cannot cope with the crisis without
international aid,” Tursun Kabirov, a local analyst, said.
Hospitals, orphanages most vulnerable
“The areas that we are most concerned about are the
hospitals, the orphanages and other facilities where we have
vulnerable groups,” Jones said.
“We know now that we are going to have prolonged shortages
[of energy] for at least 25 days - and by shortages I mean
maybe two hours of electricity per day, three to four hours
perhaps in other locations,” the UN official said.
Hospitals are experiencing sub-zero temperatures, with
vulnerable premature babies requiring incubators most at
risk, officials and experts said.
Heating
In terms of heating, urban areas appear to be most at risk:
“The problem [of energy and heating] seems to be confined
primarily to the urban areas. Here, in multi-storey
apartments we have people totally dependent on electricity
and natural gas [for heating and cooking], whereas in the
countryside we have people who are accustomed to going
without electricity; they have alternative forms of fuel,”
Jones said.
According to a survey on the impact of energy shortages on
households conducted between late January and early February
by the REACT network (comprising relevant government
ministries, UN agencies and major non-governmental
organisations), 88 percent of households in Dushanbe said
electricity was their main source for heating.
The Soviet-era heating systems for large blocks of flats
have largely broken down and the overall energy system has
been further affected by Uzbekistan’s recent suspension of
gas supplies.
Food insecurity
Power shortages have caused food prices to rise and
households, particularly in rural areas, to spend more
resources on fuel. The combined effect means households have
less disposable income for food, Jones said.
The REACT survey said about 35 percent of Dushanbe’s
population was having trouble buying food and other basic
necessities, while the figure for other areas was 63-78
percent.
The total number of vulnerable people - defined as children
in orphanges, premature babies in maternity hospitals,
patients in hospitals and people who cannot afford more than
one meal a day - is about 500,000, according to Jones. This
is a report from IRIN, the Integrated Regional Information
Network. Although a part of the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRIN’s news service is
editorially independent. Its reports do not necessarily
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