North-East of Romania was covered by floods in last week. Few thousands of families evacuated and thousands of houses were damaged by the waters. A true drama for each of these people and we must support them by all means. You can find images on all news sites and some selections here:

http://dianadyma.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/o-viata-de-nimic/

http://www.realitatea.net/video_434497_dig-rupt_324017.html.

Everything starts on 23rd of July, when the National Institute for Hydrology (http://www.inhga.ro) advertised first time for floods in the North of Romania, putting the yellow code on main rivers from that area. The evolution was quick and in 25th of July the floods already make first victims in Suceava county. But no authority was interested in this at that time. The same situation as in the past, so why bother to get dirty?

Saturday on 26th of July President Traian Basescu went in Suceava and that was the trigger for all other authorities and some politicians. After that visit… what a struggle in Government, in local bodies, how they put in the hurry the yellow rubber boots, how they explain to the people (in front of mass-media of course) that they were prepared, but the floods comes from Ukraine, how they were not informed, how they are working for the people, bla, bla, bla… This overreaction was generated by the fact that in November will be Parliamentary elections and no politician can afford to miss such an (tragic) event after the President was there. But, you will see bellow, that is something is not right even here.

The drama of floods is not new in Romania, and cannot be related to “global warming”. The largest floods in the end of XX century were in 1970 and 1972, after Communist Party decided to get more energy and irrigations from rivers and to expand agriculture in areas inappropriate for this activity. They started a large program for this, changing rivers’ courses, making barrages, and we can say that they obtained some successes in this direction. No more floods, some gain for extensive agriculture, but this effort was stopped after the major earth quake in 1977, due to the lack of resources and to the new target of Ceausescu: change of cities aspect in a communist way.

After the Revolution in December 1989, no authority was interested even for this existing system maintenance. More of that, the disaster of “stolen forests”, mainly in North and center of Romania, where these floods are now a yearly presence, had a tremendous contribution to the aggravation of the phenomenon.

The floods in Romania of XXI century starts in Maramures (North of Romania), first area with massive forests cut. Then was in Alba (Center of Romania), continued in Banat (West) where also the forests were “shaved”.

What was the reaction of the authorities and of politicians? Let me offer you some cynical quotes of politicians to the floods problems:

- Banat Floods 2005 – Calin Popescu Tariceanu, Prime minister to an insistent hard-hit: “What do you want? We cannot build a hotel for you now. We cannot offer you home comfort. In this moment you must be pleased with what we are offering you and then we will send you some materials to rebuild your houses”

 Botosani floods 2008 – Razvan Theodorescu, Senator of Botosani County: “I have no intention to go there. In next elections I will not candidate in Botosani anymore. I will be Senator of Bucharest”

One analyst from Bucharest (at 500 km from the disaster) discussed today (02 August) on a TV station how he don’t understand why a person can say that is the third time that he rebuild his house due to the floods damages. This fact generated some questions for the analyst: Why that old man does not leave the area if there are floods? Why the authorities do not force people to pay for mandatory insurance of their houses? But this analyst doesn’t ask himself: Where this guy can go? Why he is poor after a life of work in very hard conditions? What have done the authorities for him and his neighbors?

Please read again and try to understand the motto of Ministry of Environment’s strategy. This is one of the keys to understand how things go in relation of people and authorities in Romania. The conclusion is that people are irresponsible and they don’t understand that they should not be in the area of the floods, and, moreover, they increase the risks on purpose, by all means. The authorities are not responsible for anything. The Ukrainians and the people in trouble are responsible in this case, maybe the aliens in other similar cases, who knows?

Now, they have convinced us that Romanian people do not deserve to be governed by such valuable persons. Regular people does not understand nothing: they stay in place when the floods comes, even nobody told them what will happen, they sell their forests for living to some businessmen, and no authority control this, they don’t build by themselves bridges and barrages to be protected from waters… Everything seems clear now, many thanks!

So, for you, others, please come to Romania, here are opportunities for everyone who want to build, to improve, to protect people on his expenses, but please don’t bother authorities or politicians with this. They are too busy to distribute money for unfinished projects, for studies without applicability, and other interesting stuff.

by George Popescu

Csop

Updated news published 7 August, 2008:

UNICEF and Realitatea TV organized a series of TV donations, for one month, with important personalities. In first show they succeed to collect ca. 500.000 Euro.