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Prepare ahead of time to handle disasters
A child seated on the varandah of their house in Doho Village, Mazimasa Sub County in Butaleja Distirct after their home was flooded. Photos/ Yahudu Kitunzi
What you need to know:
- The issue: Disaster preparedness.
- Our view: We need to fund disaster preparedness and management institutions and ensure that the country is prepared at all times to cope with and manage disasters.
Triggered by heavy rains that have been pounding the area for at least three days, the floods destroyed property, including crops, and forced authorities in the area to close six schools.
Travellers trying to leave the area were also stranded at Nakwasi and Manafwa bridges on the Mbale-Butaleja road since it has been cut off by the raging floods.
But this is just the beginning of the sad tales that we shall hear in the coming weeks. Stories of death and destruction of property are routine in Uganda once the rainy season starts.
Graphic videos of floods washing away people and animals, or the bodies being retrieved, always make the rounds on socials media, but not much changes as we wait for the next episode in the coming season.
With the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA) warning early last month that parts of the country should brace themselves for heavy rain in the first season, we hoped the authorities planned better.
Uganda experiences two major rainfall seasons: March-April-May (MAM), and September-October-November-December (SOND) as the first and second rain seasons respectively. However, regions in the northern sector of the country experience the third rainfall season during the June-July-August (JJA) period.
At the beginning of 2021, government released the first national risk and vulnerability atlas, showing parts of the country that are prone to natural disasters.
The atlas identified seven types of disasters that strike diverse parts of the country in different seasons. These included floods, drought, lightning, earthquakes, landslides, hailstorms and windstorms.
Despite having such information, we always seem to be caught unprepared when disaster strikes.
Until last year, Uganda did not have a relief budget and depended largely on the goodwill of donors and humanitarian groups. Our appeal to government is create a reasonable relief budget so that people can be helped in time. For instance, the people trying to flee the affected areas in Butaleja should be evacuated within reasonable time.
It is high time our lawmakers create a commission to manage responses to disasters and emergencies as provided for in the Constitution. Instead of firefighting, government should plan and budget around mitigating disasters before they happen.
Finally, we need to fund disaster preparedness and management institutions and ensure that the country is prepared at all times to cope with and manage disasters.
For if we do not move to prepare for disasters ahead of time, we shall always be caught flat-footed whenever they strike.
