Extreme Cold Leaves Tajikistan Without Water, Power


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February 1, 2008 12:00 p.m. EST

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Linda Young - AHN Editor

Dushanbe, Tajikistan (AHN) - Large numbers of people in Tajikistan have lost water and electricity because of severe winter cold in that Central Asian country, UNICEF officials said Friday. The Tajikistan Health Ministry has issued a plea to the international community for emergency generators. UNICEF has also issued a plea to the international community for money on behalf of the impoverished nation.

The extreme cold temperatures caused water levels to fall at a major hydroelectric power plant after rivers upstream from the plant froze. Water in private wells and in pipelines also froze, which meant that many people turned to melting snow for drinking water. With electricity outages the price of firewood has doubled, pricing it out of the range of many people.

Schoolchildren are being kept home because there is no heat in schools and the electricity shortages in hospitals caused the deaths of at least two newborns.

With power generating capacity severely restricted because of the falling water level in the Nurek reservoir, state-owned power company Barki Tojik had announced rationing and blackouts on Tuesday in an attempt to manage the crisis.

However, the continued cold temperatures have created a situation that the nation can't handle alone with extreme cold temperatures forecast to last through February.

On Friday the nation issued a plea for supplies such as emergency generators, baby blankets and soap. UNICEF has also appealed for $720,000 in donations to that nation after officials approached the agency for help.

The impoverished nation is slightly smaller than Wisconsin and shares borders with Uzbekistan, which is also experiencing problems with electricity shortages, as well as Kyrgyzstan, China and Afghanistan. Its largest natural resource is, ironically, hydropower.

It has a population of 7,076,598, became independent from the former Soviet Union in 1991 and with one of the lowest gross domestic products of any of the former Soviet republics, Tajikistan has a poverty rate of 64 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook.


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