Thursday, November 12, 2015

Weather is changing in Egypt and We are not talking about it

I think after what happened in Beheira and Alexandria as well other places in Nile Delta from heavy rain and floods, Egyptians should think more about the dramatic climate change in Egypt.
Not less than 30 people were officially killed in the past two weeks due to the heavy rains in Beheira and Alexandria, especially in Beheira where a complete village “Ufona” in Wadi Al-Natroun was drowned.
The death toll of the people who died because of the heavy rain already could be more if you take in account the testimonies of the villagers in “Ufona” who insist that there are tens of dead bodies in the village under water.
Here are photos from Ufona.
By Alaa El-Kassas 
By Alaa El-Kassas 


By Alaa El-Kassas 
The government is going to found a new village for Ufona survivors. I wonder if the government will pay attention to the climate change in constructing this small village.
Unfortunately as expected, Alexandria captured all the attention whether officially or unofficially in the media. From a couple of days ago, President El-Sisi remembered that Alexandria was suffering from heavy rains and floods and decided to visit. During that visi, he announced he announced that he allocated LE1 billion from the Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt) fund for the development of the sewage system in the city.  The Engineering authority following the Egyptian armed forces will upgrade the sewage system in the city.
That visit came after huge anger and protest by the people of Alexandria in poor working class areas.

انزل الناس زهقت من الاهمال والبيوت اللي غرقت ومحدش بيسمع#اسكندرية_بتغرق
Posted by ‎الحسن بن الهيثم‎ on Thursday, November 5, 2015
The people were cursing his name directly angrily wondering how he left them and went to London. That visit of London turned to be awkward in its own way.

اهالى عزبة عبد القادر الغارقة للسيسى : رد يا جزمة
Posted by ‎علاء القصاص‎ on Saturday, November 7, 2015
This video was filmed photographer Alaa Kassass in Izbt Abdel Kader “Abdel Kader’s Manor” and it shows a glimpse how is the situation there.
Those angry people cut and blocked the main highways and roads so the officials would look to their misery.

Alexandria and Beheira are used to have seasonal rain and thunderstorms known in Egypt as “Nawat” and they have even a calendar with such thunderstorms’ exact dates.
Still, the level of water or rather rain drops was unprecedented in Egypt according to Egypt’s Meteorological authority.
On Tuesday, Egypt’s ministry of irrigation and water sources announced that the amount of rainwater Egypt got in those two or three weeks was estimated to be equal the average annual amount Egypt had got.
we are not a rich country in rain already.
According to the estimations of the ministry, the amount rainwater that fell in West Delta “ Alexandria and Beheira” reached in 48 hours last week to 700 million m3 !!!!!
It is more than unprecedented.
This water can be a bless instead of a curse if we know who to use it. Instead of drowning villages and destroying highways, we store this water for irrigation if we have proper rain drainage system.
Needless to say, I wonder if the Egyptian government will have any real strategy to face this environmental challenge.
Already, it turned out that several scientists warned the government for years about this, but nobody cared to listen. The society needs to speak about this before the government.
There is no need to spend billions to build a new administrative capital when the old cities and governorates are fighting floods.
Just like there the republican deniers of global warming and climate change, I noticed that there are many conspiracy theories about the climate in Egypt among a group of Pro-Sisi supporters not surprisingly.
What started as a wild conspiracy theory by the former head of Egyptian armed forces strategic think tank Hossam Sweilam is finding its way through the Facebook pages !!
It is like the right wing in every country always disbelieve science and believe in wild conspiracy theories.
The ministry of interior had its share of wild conspiracy theories as it announced officially from couple of days ago that it busted a Muslim Brotherhood cell made of couple of guys accused of blocking the sewage systems in Alexandria among other terrorist acts !!

The Brotherhood is behind the blockage of Alexandria sewage system in Alexandria

What is worrying in that video is that among the suspects, a young man from April 6 Youth movement who disappeared from a couple of weeks before resurfacing in that video. In fact according to the Arabic African for freedoms and human rights center, at least 10 of the suspects were arrested 20 days earlier in a fight between two local families in Alexandria.

ردا علي بيان وزاره الداخليه حول ما زعمت فيه ان خليه ارهابيه عددها 17 شخص تسببوا في غرق الاسكندريه...يؤكد المركز العربي...
Posted by ‎المركز العربي الإفريقي للحريات وحقوق الإنسان‎ on Friday, November 6, 2015

Ironically, it came a day or two before El-Sisi’s visit where it was officially announced that there something was wrong in Alexandria’s sewage system and the army will fix it.
Also, I do not think that cell was responsible for the flood of Wadi Al-Natroun or other places in Beheira !!!!!??
Anyhow, I hope more people speak about that climate change.

2 comments:

  1. OK , I can expect already some the responds to my post , like "you're paranoid" or "enough with conspiracy theory" but seriously this is what's going on. The US and its partners are playing with the global weather with the so called HAARP , I'm sure you've heard of it , and for those who haven't google it to find out what it does. I live in Kuwait, we have quite a few thunder storms , and we've seen clearly in the sky a UFO shaped figure hidden in the clouds , one of which I've seen with my own eyes but convinced myself that was a cloud formation. But when I saw a photo that some one took to the same figure during another storm I knew that this is serious.

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  2. Just to comment a bit on the political spectrum thing, the National League for Democracy in Myanmar very recently won a smashing victory against an alliance of the country's ruling military cult and fanatics who had twisted Buddhist for their own ends. The mixture of militarist supremacism, race/nationality/ethnicity worship, and extreme sectarianism could not stop sanity from prevailing.

    Some day, someone in Egypt will play the role of the NLD.

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