Deputy of the Mazhilis of the Parliament Sergey Ponomarev previously visited the West Kazakhstan region, where people are struggling to resist the elements. He inspected the affected areas, studied the scale of the disaster from the air and communicated with local residents. Zakon.kz asked him to share his observations.

— Sergey Mikhailovich, how would you assess the situation in the region after what you saw?

— I have been in the West Kazakhstan region for several days. I drove almost a thousand kilometers in a car, flew around several flooded areas by helicopter. I sailed by boat through villages, houses, and farmsteads that were flooded.

Here are two examples. The first one is Korzhyn village. The water came suddenly, there has not been such water since 1994. The wave height is two and a half meters. People simply were not prepared for the fact that their village could be flooded. 130 men remained in the village, part of the village was flooded, 170 women, children and the elderly were evacuated and transported to the district boarding school. I have been to this gymnasium, it is warm there, normal conditions have been created, the food is good. But, of course, uncertainty is terrible. How long will they live there? A month, two, three, four?

The second one is the Questionnaires. We also arrived there, looked at where the evacuation sites are, the collection point. People showed us dead cattle and poultry. There is water in the houses. The problem there is that from time immemorial they have been building houses in which it is very comfortable — warm in winter, cool in summer. But they instantly settle and fall apart from the water. This is because they are built from the traditional adobe building material – clay with straw. Solid, good buildings, lined with brick on the outside, and made of adobe inside. You peel off the wallpaper or plaster directly — you can see how the house "sits down". Before my eyes, houses were literally falling down, walls were falling apart, batteries were falling off, everything became just a piece of clay.

The whole west is gasified, but due to bad weather, the stoves are out of order, that is, people can't even heat up, unfortunately. It gets so cold in the houses, as if you get into an ice crypt. But people don't have tears in their eyes, no one threw tantrums, didn't wring their hands. They are very persistent in the West, our people, fellow countrymen. But, of course, they need help from the state.

— Regarding the houses. You said that certain difficulties were associated with the materials. At the same time, it was believed that the houses were so badly flooded because they were built in the lowlands. Here is the example of Western Kazakhstan — is it so? Or was the water column such that the location of the houses no longer mattered?

— If we talk about Western Kazakhstan, yes, indeed, in one village, Ankaty, several houses were built in the lowlands. Moreover, it was built in 2011 and of high quality. These houses have gone under the water.

In other villages, I saw an extremely negligent attitude of people towards nature. There were 30 years of waterlessness, no one thought that the elements would come there. The buildings are right on the riverbank, there are no water protection zones. After all, everyone wants to go out in the morning, drive out the cattle, get them drunk, and you can also go fishing. And the river overflowed its banks, an ice jam formed, ice floes a meter thick piled on top of each other. As a result, water instantly gushed into the district center, which was located in the immediate vicinity, the houses fell into disrepair.

In addition, I saw that absolutely the state did not control the situation with the channels. Farmers pulled every drop of water towards them, erected some dams, built farms near reservoirs. Everything turned out to be a disaster, and a colossal one at that. First of all, those who lived near the water were flooded. Small dams were demolished, and those water channels that the residents let in to themselves — they flooded them.

But at the same time, when you look from a helicopter at the water to the horizon, you realize that it is impossible to cope with this element. There has not been such a flood for 80 years. I am following the news — the same situation is in Orenburg, Samara, and Altai in neighboring Russia. So all the factors played at once.

— It is clear that this is a natural phenomenon that is difficult to resist. But nevertheless, did the residents themselves blame the local authorities for what happened? Did you say that there were flaws? In addition to the questionable control of water protection zones, were there any other mistakes that led to such consequences?

— I will answer you, draw your own conclusions. The governor of the region is an extremely experienced person who has passed all the stages of career growth. The region has already been flooded, there is experience of what to do in what sequence. I myself saw sandbags that had been harvested since autumn, they stood in dry barns. Preparations were made in advance. This area, maybe like no other, was ready for floods.

But at the same time, I saw how carelessly they have been building in recent years. I saw that when the tracks were laid, pipes were not laid in low-lying places to drain the water, and if they were laid, it was of a small diameter. If there were old pipes, they were lined with rubble, as required by technology. Our modern ones, laid down three to five years ago, were simply sprinkled with earth - and they were instantly washed away. I would say that I have also seen such mismanagement, corruption. The desire is just to make money.

I saw that government agencies are working clearly, I sailed on a boat with the akim of the district. She lives 40 km from the flooded village, but spends the day and nights with the victims. People spoke very warmly about her. I even have a report about it. Tired, exhausted, but nevertheless does not abandon her fellow villagers.

The whole republic coordinates the actions. There are enough motors, pumps, evacuation sites, food, field furnaces.

The desire of people to rally is felt. I personally watched how tractors of local farmers loaded bricks, fragments of destroyed buildings, carried and quickly made dams.

But there were also those who came up and said: "Oh, my cattle have been in the water for five days, why don't they give me a pump to pump it out?" They came to figure it out — it turned out that the person simply did not remove the snow in his yard after the winter, although the akimat warned. The snow has melted, the water has risen, the animals are up to their bellies in the water, and he is calling for volunteers to help.

A sea of contrasts. On the one hand, the irresponsibility of people, on the other, the heroism of these same people. On the one hand, the irresponsibility of the authorities — they completely forgot the specialties related to water, there are no hydraulic engineers, hydropower engineers, traditional water routes and dams are not controlled. We have 537 hydraulic structures in Kazakhstan, of which 230 are in private hands, seven are unattended. On the other hand, the work is underway, the Ministry of Water Resources, established last year, is now making an inventory.

Don't forget: we are dealing with a country-wide disaster. We flew several hundred kilometers over the icy steppe ourselves. The ground was frozen, the liquid was not absorbed. And what happens if you pour a glass of water on the table?

Naturally, a "debriefing" should be carried out. But it will be later, because now it would be impractical to shoot someone, punish, fire them. The responsible persons already know the scope of work, the site, therefore they must save the territory entrusted to them.

— But even before the floods began, experts, including environmentalists, warned that many dams in Kazakhstan are simply potentially dangerous. The question is brewing: is it the unheard warnings, or is it that our facilities were not designed for such volumes of water in principle?

— Absolutely correct warnings. But now you can warn anyone, but you still won't be able to solve this issue immediately.

And both mattered. This is still a riot of the elements, which, I repeat, has not been for 80 years.

— The state will allocate 281 thousand tenge per square meter of housing in the form of compensation to victims. How do you see this amount, is it sufficient?

— The amount, frankly speaking, is small, especially considering the scale of the disaster. In addition, it has not ended yet, the peak of floods is just coming.

Being on the ground, I saw some nuances that may not have been mentioned yet. Yes, you can't build a mansion for this money, but, you must agree, it's still better than a pile of clay. People in the villages are strong-handed, enterprising, able to save money and cope on their own, without hired workers. I think they will fit into the designated framework.

— Is compensation provided for the dead cattle?

— Yes, it is provided. People turned to me, asking what to do if the cattle are not insured, without tags. I replied: the commission should examine everything within a month. While it's cold, don't bury the carcasses in animal burial grounds — let them be. The commission will make a decision on the fact, the cost will be compensated.

— How long can it take to eliminate all the consequences of floods only in the west of the republic?

— If we are talking about building houses, I think they will be built by autumn. And if we are talking about the revival of dams, then at least five years. It's just that we have lost personnel, there are no universities that train them, even teachers who would train specialists in this field have been lost. And this means that it is necessary now to apply abroad, to "raise" retired specialists so that they can find those maps and schemes that have remained since Soviet times. It is necessary to assess the hydrological situation.

— What lessons should fellow citizens learn for the future?

— Rely not only on state mechanisms, but also on your own inner voice. Of course, we must legislate, local authorities must control the water protection zone, so that people in no case settle along rivers that can pose a threat once every 30 years, as it turned out. You know, in Uralsk, they built a whole cottage town where there has been no big water since 1994. He's gone under the water now.

Why do Kazakhstanis build houses dangerously close to reservoirs? And why are they allowed to do this? There is either a carelessness or a corruption component, as you wish.