Prime Minister Rama was today among residents of flooded areas in the south of the country, after the heavy rainfalls.

At noon, the Prime Minister arrived in Novosele, one of the most affected areas by the floods. In a briefing on the situation with the Minister of Interior, General Director of Civil Emergencies, the Prefect of Vlora, the Mayor of Novosele and MPs of Vlora district, who have been sent since the first moments to the flooded areas to support the emergency staff, it was reported that all state structures have a maximum mobilization and currently the water level has lowered, which facilitates the emergency operations.

Director General of Civil Emergency, Shemshi Prençi reported that the Directorate General of Civil Emergency is in constant contact and has informed steps by step emergency staff since receiving the information from the meteorological service. “The Weather Monitoring Centre in Slovakia and the Albanian Meteorological Service informed on January 28a about the civil emergency situation. The Ministry of Interior, the General Directorate of Civil Emergencies informed thoroughly and step by step the staff of emergency prefectures in Vlore, Fier, Gjirokastra, Berat and Elbasan.”

Taking into consideration the events occureed in 1971 and in 2005 in this region, according Premçi, this situation is a result of extremely intense rainfall in the region of Gjirokastra, which has caused the overflow of the river Vjosë, where the water has exedeed the 1 meter hight, damaging mainly the municipalities Levan, Novosele and Frakull with approximately 1100 families. “So far 300 families and approximately 10 thousand livestock have been evacuated. The resistance of inhabitants is an issue of concern, because communities, both in northen and southern regions, still lack the culture to leave the house when specialized and local government and central government meteorological services urge to do so”, Premçi said.

Prefect of Vlora Etiona Hoxha said that this situation is exposing major problems inherited, which should be addressed. “Obviously, this is an inherited situation. A project for the whole system of the sewerage network in the municipality of Novosela, which was submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture in 2011 can be applied and implemented as quickly as possible to improve the situation. If it would have been done early as 2011, we would be in a much better situation today”- the Prefect of Vlora said. She informed that measures have been taken to ensure the necessary amount of food.

Maximum mobilization of all state structures, although in an extraordinary situation, the Prime Minister said, avoided the loss of human life. The Prime Minister urged residents to cooperate and evacuate houses when asked. In addition, he announced that a detailed report of all damages will be done.

“Of course, it is clear that on the one hand we are dealing with a completely exceptional situation in terms of weather, as you can hear also from residents of this area and from the results from historical meteorological data. But on the other hand, I am very proud, because before the crazy weather started, civil emergencies based on meteorological data, consolidated internationally, were prepared, and all relevant structures of the state, in the central and prefecture level have were on red alert and so far they have avoided life loss, have avoided major damage in terms of livestock and are on duty nd they will stay beside people until this is over.

On the other hand we have many flooded and damaged houses. A detailed report of all damages will be made. Meanwhile we have started to communicate with international partners. This morning we had a communication with Brussels to assess the possibility of a support in this regard.

Also, special thanks go to the Minister of Agriculture and for the entire team that has been engaged since last September-October, in order to have a normal overall functioning of the pumping stations, a normal functioning of structures, which has actually happened and this is something positive.

Of course, we are paying for what we have done to the environment, for what we have done to forests, for what we have done to riverbeds and for blocking cannals for many years. Only during this period of 16 months, we have opened a number of cannals in territories where the farm production is equal to twice or three times the amount of cannals that have been treated for over twenty years. There is still a lot of work to be done and we will address these problems, of course, according to the foreseen 4-year plan, but definitely by addressing also what this disaster natural disaster has brought to the whole area afftected by the overflow of river Vjosa.

Let’s hope that the weather will improve in the coming days, although another storm with inflows and heave precipitations is expected around Wednesday. We hope that this is a wrong forecast, but we are prepared. I urge all citizens to whom state structures ask to leave their homes to not hesitate in doing so and not allow themselves become prey of midnight panic, or prey to panic when things become extremely difficult and extremely dangerous.”

The head of the municipality of Novoselë Kanan Shaka made an appeal:

“First of all I thank all state structures for their support. We have been here with them for 3 days, and thank God so far there have been no loss of life. All measures have been taken. MPs, structures, Emergency Headquarters of the Prefecture, everybody is on red alert. We had a problem with the opposition, which kept telling the people to not leave their homes. So I call upon them to not deal with these problems, but to help people overcome the current situation. Then let’s deal with each other.”

 

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After Novosela, Prime Minister Rama inspected another area severely affected by floods in Fier, Levan. He was accompanied by the Minister of Interior Samir Tahiri, chairman of the parliamentary group Gramoz Ruçi, SP MPs of Fier, Director General of Civil Emergencies and the Prefect of Fier.

The Prefect of Fier Xhevit Bushi said that the situation has been continuously monitored since the first moment.

“Flows have been huge and unprecedented, as reported from those who are following the situation. Approximately 5 thousand hectares of land have been flooded, as well as 34 hectares and production in greenhouses that were about to be put on the market are now covered by water. We intervened and evacuated 120 families. We go on monitoring the situation, either in the municipality of Frakull and Dermenas, which became problematic last night. Since pumping stations of Darzezë and Seman are functioning, the situation there is normal at the moment. We are constantly monitoring the situation in collaboration with the village elders, mayors and emergency staff, who have been here non-stop. Now we have to evacuate the livestock.”

Prime Minister Rama stressed once again that the priority is to save every human life. Meanwhile, damages caused by flooding will be identified and reimbursed.

“Of course, the critical phase has been closely connected with the rescue of every person and family in danger and with every possible help to save the livestock. Now we are prepared for a strong second rainfall, as it has been forecasted, but probably it will not be the case; however, we are prepared for this. We will start in parallel with the identification and the inventory of all problems and damages, treating the situation as a natural disaster situation. Then we will address problems with determination, so that huge losses, especially of farmers the prefect said, will be reimbursed. This is the objective that immediately follows the first and the mos important one which is to save every person, every family and possibly the endangered livestock, and definitely we will not neglect the extraordinary damages caused to farmers of this area.”

To follow up the situation emergency staffs have been launched in every prefecture, coordinated by the Center for Civil Emergencies in the Ministry of Interior. The Armed Forces are also included in the rescue operations.