SABAHI
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Heavy rains trailing a cyclone, which battered Somalia's Puntland
region and left as many as 300 people dead, have also flooded parts of
the Somaliland region and done much damage to the port city of Berbera.
In Puntland as of Wednesday (November 13th), the human death toll
from the cyclone was confirmed at 143, State Minister for Good
Governance Mohamed Farah Isse told Sabahi. The local government said 300
were feared dead and hundreds of others missing.
As many as 100,000 animals -- mostly goats -- perished in the storm, Isse said.
"The rain is accompanied by an extreme cold, wind and a lot of water,
which have killed the people and the animals," he said. "We cannot
reach the affected areas because the vehicles are becoming stuck in the
mud. We provided a small amount of aid to the district of Dangorayo,
however, we cannot reach Eyl and Bandarbeyla."
The Puntland cabinet has appointed an inter-agency committee -- made
up of the region's interior affairs, health and planning ministries, as
well as its disaster response agency -- to manage the humanitarian
response to the cyclone's fallout, Isse said.
District Commissioner of Garmal Gurey Salad Qayad said the cyclone
had killed 25 people in his village alone, located 80 kilometres east of
Dangorayo in Puntland's Nugaal region.
"The dead people include a mother and six of her children, while only
the father and his niece survived in that family," Qayad told Sabahi,
adding that the village had become an island surrounded by water on all
sides.
People living in the areas of Puntland battered by the cyclone also
expressed fear that many others could die from the threat of an outbreak
of disease.
In Puntland's Karkaar region, there are many injured and sick people
who urgently need medical care, said Ahmed Mohamud Hassan, head of
medicine in Kulule village. The little food left in the village was
running out, he said.
"Here in the village there are 1,000 people stranded whose animals have been killed and who do not have food," he told Sabahi.
Hassan said he was grateful to the federal
government for its $1 million pledge for post-cyclone relief, but he
called on officials to expedite the aid.
"If the aid is delayed, it will not do us any good," he said.
Somaliland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Bihi Yonis and its
Minister of Interior Affairs Ali Mohamed Waranadde said Tuesday
(November 12th) that the region would also participate in the
humanitarian relief efforts for the victims of the cyclone in Puntland.
Cyclone's trail of destruction:
The cyclone weakened by the time it reached the Somaliland region,
but the heavy rains it produced "have caused damage through the extreme
cold accompanying them and the extensive flooding that has resulted,"
said Mohamed Muse Awale, chairman of Somaliland's National Environment
Research and Disaster Preparedness and Management Authority.
The rains in Hargeisa lasted for about 48 hours and were accompanied
by heavy cloud cover and fog that prevented flights from landing at the
local airport on Tuesday.
As a result, as many as ten commercial flights, as well as flights
operated by the United Nations and European Union, had to be diverted
from Hargeisa Airport, said Abdillahi Ahmed Arshe, the chief of protocol
in Somaliland's Ministry of Civil Aviation and Air Transport.
"The flights were routed to the airports in Dire Dawa [Ethiopia],
Mogadishu, Berbera and Djibouti," Arshe told Sabahi, adding that flights
resumed on Wednesday.
The rains, nonetheless, hit the port city of Berbera hard enough to
damage buildings and displace 500 families, according to officials. At
least ten people, who were injured in the rains and flooding, were taken
to a local hospital.
In Togdheer region, two people died as a result of the rains,
Waranadde said Wednesday in an interview with Voice of America's Somali
language service.
"Thanks to God, there are no deaths [in Berbera], but there is
extensive damage," Berbera Mayor Abdishakur Mahmoud Hassan said at news
conference Wednesday alongside Sahil Governor Ali Mohamed Elmi.
"The city was flooded with a lot of water and about 50 of the old
houses collapsed," Hassan said, adding that the displaced people had
been given shelter at schools in the city.
"The greatest [need] is something for them to eat and somewhere to
shelter," Elmi said. "We are calling on the government and aid agencies
to extend emergency assistance to them."
Among the city's uprooted residents was Asha Jama, a mother of five.
"My children and I were without shelter for two nights. I am worried
the cold will harm [the children]," said Jama, who was sheltering with
her family at Bursade High School.
The neighbourhoods of Darole and Barwaqo were among the most damaged
in Berbera because many of the houses there are old, said Abdikarim Said
Salah, a local reporter with Horn Cable TV.
"Aside from the houses it has destroyed, the flood impacted most of
the houses in the city," he said. "At this time, there is a lot of
standing water in Berbera. In addition to that, the residents are afraid
more rains will come and impact their lives."