STRAIGHT TALK : Time the govt broke the silence over rain disaster

Once again rain has wrecked havoc all over Tanzania but mostly the affected areas are those in the coastal zone including Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Tanga and Morogoro.

The rains were forecasted by the Tanzania Meteorological Authority (TMA) and warned against prolonged and downpours and this has happened and has been the source of misery adding salt to the wound of many poor families.

The rains are indeed seasonal ones but the huge excess is attributed to the changing weather patterns due to climate change which is caused by multiple reasons including those said to be man-made.

The man-made causes have been talked a lot and huge awareness programmes have been put into place but the state of global climate seems or appears to have crossed the salvation line and what now happens can hardly be stopped, not in Tanzania but worldwide.

The rains have now been pouring for over three weeks almost daily and the TMA is yet to provide exact measurements as to how much has been coming down, but rough outlook many compare the latest rains to those of December 1997 in what was known as El Nino and resulting in huge losses.

And the current rains have done huge damages in Unguja, Pemba, Lushoto, Handeni, Mlalo, Mlimba and Dar es Salaam destroying dwellings and insurmountable amount of people are living in the open or in their neighbours’ homes.

In Zanzibar the floods have been so much that the government there ordered the closure of schools in order to protect children from coming into harms way as many schools are also submerged.

There is huge likelihood of water borne diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera to break out in those areas and be the source of yet another disaster adding to the current one already wearing heavily on the shoulders of wananchi.

In Unguja and Pemba roads have been destroyed and in some places bridges have been swapped and causing transportation woes. There is no hope that this could be addressed as quickly as possible and thus meaning cutting off people of one side to the other.

The Members of Parliament have tried to raise their voices on the issue by trying to call for government attention so as to make an early intervention, but so far the government has not moved in as fast as could be envisaged.

Those who raised their voices include Rashid Shangazi (Mlalo); Steven Ngonyani (Korogwe Rural); Mussa Bakkar (Tanga) and James Mbatia (Vunjo) but until now there has been no official word from the government.

There is no information if officials from the Disaster Department were already on the ground and on top of the issue and making assessment on the social, human and physical damage. It is the silence that has been worrying some of us.

So as we stand now, we are not informed what is the state of the situation and what measures our government is taking towards tackling it. We are so eager that we cannot wait, but waiting we have been.

It is very unfortunate that as people sleep out in the cold, children stopped from going to school, people living from donations, the government has stopped from declaring this as a calamity or disaster and push a mitigation program to alleviate the hardships currently being endured by the affected population.

We are calling up to the government to come out of the shell and own up the disaster as people are suffering and need support now, today. One day more is more pain and feeling of being deserted is darkly printed in their hearts.