Azernews.Az

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev presided a meeting on Friday to discuss the rising level of the Kura river that has caused flooding in a number of surrounding regions.
President Aliyev said inundations occurred in 40 Azerbaijani regions, 20,000 homes were flooded, over 300 homes collapsed, and 2,000 houses are in dilapidated condition due to the natural calamity, the state television channel AzTV reported. Also, 50,000 hectares of arable land and pastures have been flooded.
The president noted that if the government had not taken timely pre-emptive measures, the consequences of the floods would have been more scalable and aggravating.
Aliyev said safety precautions are being stepped up to counter the surging level of Kura, assistance being provided to the people affected by the floods and they are being temporarily settled in safe locations. The president pledged that compensations will be paid out to the citizens who suffered from the calamity, saying their social problems would be resolved.
Aliyev issued orders to develop a comprehensive plan of action for the next two years and to swiftly purchase additional machinery for rescue workers.
Kura is a 1,515 kilometer (941 mile) long river in the Caucasus Mountains entering the Caspian Sea. Starting in north-eastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Araz River. The increasing human use, and eventual damage, of the watershed’s forests and grasslands contributed to a rising intensity of floods through the 20th century. In the 1950s, the Soviets started building many dams and canals on the river.*