Prime Minister Edi Rama today visited one the worst-affected areas by most recent floods due to the torrential rain in Albania’s southern municipalities of Fier and Vlora. The critical situation because of the record-breaking flows that caused Vjora river to break its banks lead to deployment of all operational structures on the ground, mobilizing in around the clock rescue and evacuation operations that also saw involvement of army troops to safely evacuate local residents from the areas threatened by floods.
PM Rama inspected two recently built embankments that successfully prevented flood waters from flooding Darezeze, an area traditionally flooded in the event of severe weather conditions.
The Mayor of Fier, Armando Subashi informed that the situation is currently stable as the floodwaters are starting to recede after Vjosa river crested and water level and flows have decreased. “This is the embankment, a government-funded investment, was built two years ago. With the help of troops we placed sandbags to increase the embankment’s level and we saw for ourselves it turned out to be beneficial in terms of preventing the water flow from flooding a large part of the area. Flood waters have receded, but torrential rain and huge water flows caused the embankment to overflow. The Vjosa river flows were beyond any predictions. We are now taking stock of the situation and no problems have been recorded in a good part of the plain area and almost zero problems have been recorded in Darzezë that has been traditionally a symbol of annual floods. Certain sections of the embankment have sustained minor damages that will be repaired starting tomorrow. This is just like we had forecast and turned out to be successful in minimizing damages,” Mayor Subashi said.
Prime Minister Rama noted that thanks to the investments in constructing new embankments and maintenance of the drainage system, which has been built back and made operational over the past few years, the situation was handled successfully and floods were averted.
“I would like to underline this aspect that thanks to the recent investments and the work that has been done to keep the drainage canals, already a genuine drainage system, and thanks the great work that has been done by army troops and emergency crews in the last 72 hours, the situation was handled in best way possible, if we bear in mind the situation we used to experience previously. With these high waters, the city’s centre and the whole area of Fier was flooded just a few years ago. Darzeza was always under water with much less flows, while flooding was totally averted this time. These are very positive developments. We should now take measures and explore ways how to further improve this embankment here, and we know quite well that things should be done properly as long as Vjosa remains a wild river and we want it to remain wild and we have stated in order to maintain it as a protected area and transform the area along Vjosa river into a national park, since construction of no hydropower plants will be allowed here, then it comes with some own risks,” PM Rama said.
The level of damage due to the river’s huge flows has been significantly reduced, whereas the flood waters from the plain areas have receded in a record time. However – the government head went on saying – more interventions should take place to improve embankments and bridges. “The additional elements need to be explored now to improve all the problematic sections so that we can mitigate the potential damage at maximum, although the damage level was smaller than it would have been without the government-funded investment and the embankment we built last year. The embankment worked properly. This is the most significant indicator of functionality of the entire drainage system, since the high water flow comes mainly from the irrigation systems that are now fully operational. We should now focus on construction of the bridge and a design should be prepared first to precisely figure out what sort of intervention is needed, but most importantly the rest of the whole system turned out to be successful. We need now to address the two or three points that need to be repaired, but everyone has to be commended for their reaction to cope with this whole volume of rainfall,” Rama said.
Defence Minister Niko Peleshi that the investments implemented in recent years saved huge swathes of land from flooding. “The investment in two embankments we just inspected, namely in the villages of Fitore and Çervenë, has actually averted flooding of around 2000 to 3000 hectares of land, although the water flows were more torrential and higher than in 2017. An investment to further expand the bridge’s plinths would further minimize flood risk. It has never happened for the water to recede within 10 to 12 hours,” Defence Minister said.
The government head called on local residents, whose houses are located in flood-threatened areas, to evacuate and move to safer places. “We should also explore ways to provide social housing to residents close to the river banks, because if one is to build illegally on the river bed, there could be no embankment or dam to protect them. The number of affected families is much smaller now and it is actually about a very small number of them that could normally move by building new homes for them, because it is impossible to let them live close to the bridge plinths and river bank,” PM Rama said.
