Authorities in Abkhazia are still reckoning with the consequences of a powerful downpour that hit the city on the night of 8–9 September, during which it has been estimated that a month’s worth of rain fell in one night. Currently, the Sukhumi (Sukhumi) administration is repairing roofs that leaked during the rain. According to the mayor’s office, authorities have received more than 50 applications from city residents whose apartments were flooded.
‘Currently, four teams are repairing roofs, replacing drainpipes, cleaning and repairing gutters, sealing and lining chimneys through which water was penetrating into apartments’, said municipal administration official Ainar Labakhua.
‘The work is being carried out seven days a week. It is planned to be completed within three weeks’, Labakhua said.
The apartments in the buildings that had recently had their facades repaired were damaged. In building number 9 on Agrba Street, the roof leaked because during recent renovation works, a temporary canopy was put up on the roof instead of a full-fledged roof — It could not withstand the pressure of the water and leaked, residents of the building told OC Media.
The first floors of buildings on several central streets of Sukhumi were also damaged, as the downpour turned city streets into small rivers.
There are storm drainage channels, but Sukhumi Mayor Timur Agrba said they were clogged with fallen leaves.
‘There was no flooding on those streets where the storm drains were cleaned, and in some places the pipes were even replaced. But not all of them have been repaired. We need to work on Dbar, Inal-Ipa, and Voronova streets. They are constantly flooded’, Agrba told journalists.
The street and bridge near the railway station, near where the Adzapsh River flows, were flooded —- a common occurrence after heavy rain.
Residents of this area are sure that the flooding was caused by the rubbish in the river.
‘Everyone who lives along its banks uses the Adzapsh as a garbage chute. The garbage forms islands and blockages, the water lingers and overflows, causing a flood here every time’, a resident of Titov Street told OC Media.
‘You should have seen what the water brings to my garden. Once a washing machine floated there. People are too lazy to throw old household appliances and furniture in the dump, they throw it in the river’.
According to the man, the river was cleaned about 10 years ago, after a major flood, and there have been no more floods since then. ‘We need to somehow fine people for throwing garbage in the wrong place, and clean the river more often’, the man told OC Media. ‘Otherwise, paying them compensation is more expensive than monitoring the utilities on time’.
The damage from the flood is still being calculated and the Sukhumi authorities have not named the final amount.
Authorities said compensation for residents whose property was damaged would be paid from the reserve funds of the president and prime minister, as well as from the funds of district administrations, as the damage extended beyond the city of Sukhumi.
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