New challenge of the Earth

The flood in the Krasnodar Territory took lives of 162 people: 3 in Novorossiysk , 11 in Gelendzhik, 148 in Krymsk. The information is presented by the Investigation Committee of Russia. Experts discussed reasons and consequences of the disaster.

Pavel Konstantinov, senior lecturer of the department of meteorology and climatology of the Geography Faculty of Moscow State University

We are dealing with the unprecedented weather situation that prevailed in those days in the foothills of the Caucasus, and, I stress, in the part of it which is usually the driest. Typically, heavy rains and thunderstorms are more likely in the south-eastern part, in Sochi and Tuapse; in contrast, Gelendzhik and western areas are considered to be dry subtropics. If we follow the facts only, slightly less than 300 mm of rainfall fell in Gelendzhik every twenty-four hours. This is almost 6 times the monthly norm for July, which corresponds to approximately 50 mm. If you want to imagine what 300 mm of rainfall is, imagine that you pour 300 liters of water on every square meter of the surface. Clearly, such intense precipitation in complex terrain would lead to similar consequences. If we talk about the synoptic conditions which have caused this situation, in principle, it is quite an ordinary occurrence. The only thing is that the duration of thunderstorm rainfall and its localization were extremely unfortunate. Therefore, a huge amount of rain fell in certain areas.

There is quite a serious hypothesis that the climate change of the present increases the frequency of extreme weather events. In principle, unfortunately, this is confirmed by the example in Krasnodar Territory. Such unprecedented rainfall, which has not fallen for at least the last hundred years of the existence of Gelendzhik and Krimsk, nevertheless, has fallen. Perhaps we should think about the assessment of the danger that threatens such populated areas, not in terms of already existing requirements, which are suitable for the present climate, but from the point of view of new challenges of the constantly-changing situation in the world.

Michael Berger, HSE professor

I am extremely pleased that the authorities have so vividly and quickly reacted to this disaster. And, as has already been reported, the victims will receive substantial monetary compensation amounting to up to 2 million. But nobody speaks about the future of the insurers. And considering the fact that no insurance company has declared its readiness to pay and no one talks about their intention to apply to an insurance company, we can conclude that most of the private property is not insured. Unfortunately, it is not in our tradition. On the one hand, I repeat, I am glad that people will get substantial aid, but I'm against the burden on the budget which may appear. I think insurance companies should be responsible for it; of course, they have to work with people and to collect insurance payments. In addition, the population of the city of Krymsk, which suffered most, numbers about 50,000 inhabitants; the largest enterprise of the city is the winery, which is quite large. There were about two thousand people employed by that enterprise. We have contacted this company today. Unfortunately, the company is flooded. I do not know how much time it will be out of operation; apparently its operation has been stopped for a long period, maybe forever. You can imagine what a winery is. There are stocks of wine and spirits there, and hardly anything is left after such a disaster. Again, we know nothing about whether the company is insured. In principle, the company is quite large; it should be insured, to my mind. But now we cannot investigate it and find out the truth.

It is also clear that small business thrives in these kind of cities. We talked with local businessmen who have lost their shops, not just their houses, in this inundation. Imagine a person who has purchased goods at the cost of a couple of million rubles, which is quite a large sum, and a significant portion of these costs is in loans. In the end, it turns out that the business is not insured, nor the loan. Imagine that material tragedy is added to human tragedy.

Finally, in my opinion, the most significant consideration is about the Neberdjayevskoye Reservoir and other reservoirs which are said to be in this area. I remind you that there is a law on compulsory insurance for high-risk facilities. It was recently adopted and came into force for the private sector in January 2012. It will take effect only next year for public companies. What does this mean? It means that the owners and managers of hazardous industries, such as oil refineries or gunpowder factories, many of these companies will have to insure their liability to third parties and to possible damage to the property of citizens and to their lives (God forbid, something like an explosion at work could happen).

A famous example is the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydro-electric Power Station. Every one of us knows about this tragedy. Actually, this accident was the impetus for such a law. One can almost say with absolute certainty that the water reservoir, located above the town or at least above those areas that were flooded, did not insure its liability because the law did not order it to do this yet. In fact, I think this is kind of unreasonable and incomprehensible logic that private business is already forced to insure these risks, and the state is not. Today, of course, we cannot speak about the reason for the accident with absolute certainty. In general there is no definite conclusion; maybe the reservoir has nothing to do with the tragedy, but the conclusions are still not reached. However, theoretically, if we will suddenly discover that it is the cause or one of the causes of flooding – let us say, a 6-meter wave with 2 meters added by the reservoir - then, of course, the operating company which operates the water reservoir should be responsible for it. We have a state-owned waterworks. Specifically, this reservoir is used according to the concession for 30 years. It was transferred to this concession not so long ago. There is an operator of this facility. Logically, if the flooding is associated with some waves from the reservoir, besides everything else, then, in theory, the affected people should receive compensation at the expense of the insurance of this dangerous facility.

Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the center for legal and psychological assistance in emergency situations

The first thing to do is, according to the Investigation Committee and the President, to deal with the officials, who once again did not warn the people, did not impose a state of emergency and were not vigilant, to put it mildly, when this catastrophe took place. We have had a large number of accidents in our country in the last period of time, and the main thing to blame is the human factor. Some power plant was flooded, because it was not repaired countless years ago, the funds for repairing it disappeared. There were such accidents in the Soviet period; Spitak crumbled like a sand city, because it was not built of cement and concrete but of sand, and everything else was stolen. The city of Rasht in Iran, which I visited together with the Moscow crew, is also a good example; roofs and heavy concrete beams were laid on walls made of sand. Therefore, when the earthquake began, the beam fell on top of people. In Germany, the same situation occurred in the Rhine region. Everywhere, and especially in our country, we must begin with the human factor. 

The investigation and the President will find out who is to blame. From my point of view, the head of the region is to blame; there are massacres all over the Kushevski region, you never know what is happening in the cities of the Krasnodar Territory, in Sochi. This is the main responsible person, to my mind.

What to do now, what kind of psychological help is necessary? A well-established office of the MOE is working there. I know how the psychologists of the MOE work, I know to what extent they can help people. My center in Moscow can only give general advice. The psychologists of the MOE do their job perfectly, so the work must be individual. Giving general advice is useless, it should be individualized. Overall, there is only one recommendation; it is to live, to live and to live. And, most importantly, those who have lost their family should also live in the memory of their beloved, live for the sake of their family, because everybody who leaves this life wish their families to be happy. It may sound esoteric, but they are still watching us, and they suffer when we suffer. Therefore, we have to find all the forces to continue our lives in memory of the departed.

Legal support for victims should be received by the residents who have suffered from the occurrence. And it will be correct if notaries and lawyers from the central regions, from nearby or perhaps even from Moscow will go there, because their help is necessary for the vast number of residents, and, of course, local notaries and lawyers will not cope with this flow. I'll tell you that we can provide legal and psychological assistance, but our capabilities are very limited. We cannot leave our clients and move back. When there is a regional problem, the responsibility rests with regional lawyers and notaries. The Ministry of Justice should send the most competent specialists there.

Mikhail Bogdanov, Director General of the Industrial and Research Institute for Engineering Surveys in Construction

Talking about these events, the nearest analogue which comes to mind is the flooding in New Orleans. In fact, in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the number of inhabitants was about the same in proportion to the number of victims. The number of inhabitants was approximately 500,000, and about 2,000 of them died. We have the number of inhabitants of about 50,000, and about 200 of them were killed. That is, the percentage is about the same. But what is important in the case of New Orleans and in our case, is the fact that in New Orleans one of the key problems, except of course the natural event, was the human factor. It was an error made by a definite calculator who modeled the walls of the channels for water not taking into account the error in the calculation model. The result was the breaking of the channels, the city was flooded and people were killed. The human factor is a key element of the disaster. The natural effect is increased by the human factor.

Concerning the events in the Kuban region, except for the questions about the dam and so on which have already been mentioned, I have some not very difficult questions, and I even wonder why they have not been asked yet. We have got an Urban Planning Code. According to the Urban Planning Code, documents of territorial planning should be developed. In preparing these documents, the crucial element, according to the Town Planning Code, should be maps of risk assessment associated with natural events. Until now, I have not heard anything about these requirements of the Code and their execution (they are necessary).

The second question that arises is the following : if you know that this territory is a territory of potential risk, in order to warn the regional authorities about the events, in principle, not very large-scale or costly measures are needed. Several weather stations can be constructed in the area. An automatic weather station with data transmission, including the transmitting part, costs maybe 40-50 thousand rubles. Let them put four stations in the district: they will cost 200 thousand rubles. The digital terrain model is a long-known thing. If you know that there is certain precipitation in this region, then I think your students can do, perhaps, something similar. They are able to calculate the catchment area if they know the amount of rainfall. It is possible to calculate how much water will come into the city. The last element is an uncomplicated program that a student can make; it would give a signal that it is necessary to begin an emergency evacuation. As we can see, four hours later, the water suddenly came. This suddenness is really worrying.

Now let us pass over to the next question. These events take place all over the world, that is, in New Orleans and in many other locations. But we have, in my opinion, fundamental problems with the way the system of preventing such events is built. A good example is the data of HydroMet. If you need to get the data of RosHydroMet, it would seem that there are not any problems. RosHydroMet is a  government agency. Every one of us as taxpayers has already paid for collecting all the necessary data. We can apparently go on the internet and receive and analyze the data on the expected situation in our region. But it turns out that it is not so. It turns out that getting HydroMet data at present is a commercial process. And it turns out that the measures which can minimize the consequences are a small money dam that can break down, and you will have to invest much more. Nevertheless, a lot of the data of RosHydroMet which are needed are not accessible for free.

Let us speak about providing maps. Basically, these maps exist. In principle, everything is all right. But in reality, if you need maps, you cannot get them. I'm not talking about secret maps; I'm talking about maps which are not confidential. The current system of access to geodetic data, for which we as taxpayers have already paid, is very complicated. This again is a commercial procedure. I would say that we have, in principle, a problem which is actually systemic. This is not only the issue of Kuban, of one village. We have the illusion that it is possible, by sending some money to a small area, where today there is a fire, to put out the fire with money. This is not the case. Along with money, professionals are necessary. Often there is an impression that once a person receives a status of civil servant, he gets super-knowledge. Prior to that he knew nothing, he became head of the district and gained knowledge about HydroMet, in engineering geology, psychology, insurance. This is a problem. While the state does not begin to understand that the system and not individual action should be built on, unfortunately, natural and manmade disasters will be repeated.

I think the key task is that cooperation should exist between the authorities and professional societies that we have. And the second issue is, in my opinion, the lack of interaction between the federal executive authorities. Now they all work together, I believe, eliminating the consequences of the disaster. We want the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Regional Development, RosHydroMet and the Ministry of Natural Resources to work together preventing disasters and not eliminating their impact. This seems very important to me.