Negligence is Putting it Mildly. This Amounts to Crime. 19 Dead Already – Geologist Shota Adamia

“The entire regions of Svaneti and Racha are covered in geological mapping. It shows every area where there’s accumulated debris material, which, if drenched with water, will dislodge after reaching certain critical mass, because it rests on a slope. You should not settle on its path. We know where Buba water flows, we know where it originates. The source where all this originated is what they call the Tbilisa glacier. It hasn’t reached Glola. Glolians know not to settle in the valley. In Shovi, as well, the slopes just above the affected area weren’t damaged. The Buba River is three kilometers long, has an average width of 100 meters, and has 10 meters of material – sand made up of crushed boulders – overlaying its bed. All of this was drenched. Some are asking where the water came from; the glacier is melting there, and there are heavy rains. It has been melting for quite a while, not just here, but worldwide. If you look at the topographic maps from the 50’s and compare them with today’s, you will see how much the contours of perpetual snow and glaciers have receded. What is so surprising in the fact that after so much debris material accumulated and was soaked with water, it was set in motion? You cannot say whether it will happen today or tomorrow, especially when agencies are not doing their job and there is no monitoring.

When we were actively working, there was continuous monitoring and we regularly updated the maps. We observed the changes and we had excellent material. We knew that cottages should not be built in the floodplains of Shovi, visitors should not be brought there, and you should be careful even just walking there, because no one knows when the critical limit will be reached and trigger a landslide. It piles up above us like a ticking time bomb.

The primary duty of the state is to ensure the safety of people, so they are not killed, injured, and their property is not destroyed – our government does not take any responsibility upon itself.

What I’m hearing now is them saying it’s not my fault, how could I have known, it was unforeseeable, etc. Of course, it wasn’t! You shouldn’t strangle science; you shouldn’t destroy the branches that continuously monitor natural phenomena. Don’t we have continuous monitoring, for example, weather bureau is working, observatories are working in different regions. All the institutions were up and running and now they are in utter disarray. Science is virtually unfinanced in the universities as well. Three universities are raising young geologists, the next generation, Tbilisi State University, Technical University, and Ilia State University. They graduate and cannot find jobs, there are no jobs.

The previous government was let go because they have made mistakes, but when you came and have held the office for 11 years, have you made a step forward? Is anyone naïve enough to think that this government will spare expense for science and monitoring? I apologize, but setting Shovi aside, take what befell us in Vere valley in 2015, when we lost 22 people.

- The authorities, including the Minister of Environmental Protection, the Head of the Geological Department, and the Chairman of the Parliament say that it was impossible to avoid what happened.

- National Environmental Agency is one tiny department, with miniscule staff, and the funding is also meager. Suppose you really can’t predict. I believe you can’t, but why did you settle people there, why did you establish a resort there. The building of the resort there was confirmed two years ago.

- Mr. Shota, on December 22, 2022, the Oni Municipality Council approved the regulation plan for the development of Shovi resort. According to this resolution, in exactly the area and its vicinity, which was destroyed by the flood, mostly the groups linked with Georgian Dream were granted the rights to build 18-meter hotel-type residential buildings.

- That’s the point. If there was nobody there, no one would have died. The story would be that some uninhabited place was flooded and that would be it. Now, it’s all about excuses and blame-shifting, it’s not my fault, it’s his, it was God who allowed this, there was nothing we could have done. How is it not your fault, why did you settle people there when geologists kept saying it is a danger zone.

- They said that the cottages and building there were mainly built during the Soviet times.

- Suppose they were. Soviet Union has collapsed. It is no more. Since you came to power, why do you keep allowing new construction.

There are obviously a plenty of new cottages there. Some people are making money. Rather they hoped to make some money. If there is money to be made anywhere, money will outweigh everything for our government and those around it. That’s the problem.

- Young hydrologist Nika Tsitelashvili distributed satellite photos showing the conditions in the valley of Buba River in years 2005, 2018, and 2020. We saw that in 2005, the valley was more or less stable, and the floodplain was filled with trees. Satellite photos from 2018 already show traces of the mudflow passage. A worsening trend can be seen in the 2020 satellite image as well. Should the relevant authorities have paid attention? Yes, they may not have plenty of resources, we haven't looked at how many employees and how much funding they are working with yet, but sourcing and analyzing such satellite images does not require any special effort, does it? Especially in the areas with glaciers that we know are in the process of melting, it's summer, it's Shovi, where a lot of people move around daily. Should they have paid attention?

- Of course. There’s a practice called remote sensing, where you look at what’s going on Earth with aerial and space photos. We have specialists, young people who work on mapping at the Caucasian Institute of Mineral Resources of Caucasus. Did someone from the government got interested if we have a specialist who can tell us what’s going on based on aerial/satellite images? No one cares. You can’t reach everywhere physically, but such places can be observed from above.

-What are we dealing with, negligence…

- Negligence is putting it mildly. This amounts to a crime. 19 are already confirmed dead, including children, and 15 are missing. Everything happened in one area, it's not like it affected the entire Shovi. Some people have built houses there, settled people there, they were making money. Who gave them permission? Where is the Ministry of Environmental Protection, what is it doing? Who was the sitting Mayor when 21 people died on the river Vere, and where is he now? How did 21 people drown on that tiny road? Who was responsible then? No one is being held accountable/

Now I pity Gaprindashvili’s agency [Merab Gaprindashvili head of the geological department of the National Environmental Agency], they are in big trouble. They try to avoid saying anything that puts blame on the government, because they will be fired immediately. They might close the agency all together.

If anyone is to blame here, primarily it is the central government, then the local one, and then the ones who started businesses there. They could not have gotten permission to build houses there so easily. Where is the Minister of Environmental Protection, who is supposed to protect the environment along with its residents? They don't care about protection, they want exploitation, to profit as much as possible, that's their policy.

- As I already told you, the Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, Otar Shamugia, yesterday repeated what the Prime Minister, the leader of the parliamentary majority and the Speaker of the Parliament said before - that we could not have avoided this tragedy and natural disasters happen even in the most developed countries.

- Who elects this government? Are we choosing wisely? Every time they get re-elected, we take steps backwards. This [government] is just too much.

- We have heard from many local residents, and saw supporting evidence that a flood occurred in the waterbed of the Buba River in 2017 as well, damaging infrastructure and roads. Leading up to Shovi is a village Chinchvisi, a 7–10-minute drive away. On August 2, 2023, the Gomrula River in Chinchvisi also overflowed and caused a flood. The footage was released on the same day. It had rained all night in Shovi, in the morning of August 3, it cleared, and the disaster struck in the afternoon. We know from the locals that before this calamity, the water level in the bed of the Buba River (a.k.a. Bubastskali) dropped significantly for several days. It is believed that the landslide blocked the valley, dammed the water, and carried away everything that had already formed as a landslide. The government denies this. They said that there was no waterlogging. What do you think, based on the available materials, what assessment can you make?

- It is a normal phenomenon, before the mudslide reached a critical mass, there would definitely be more local, smaller events ahead. When the ice melts, where does the water go? At first the mass is a watery gush that is motionless. Before it sets in motion, it is water-saturated debris, Caucasian material, washed down from glaciers, slopes, and small rivers. This mass accumulates because Bubba's water is weak and cannot overpower it immediately. Therefore, it accumulates as a solid material with water. This mud, as soon as it overcomes the resistance that was holding it back, sets off.

Notion that the government had nothing to do with it is an attempt at deceiving the population. If no one was there, nobody would have been killed.

- The initial assessment of the National Environmental Agency is as follows - the mass of the rock avalanche collapsed, crashed into the glacier, broke off part of it, which may have caused the overflow of subglacial waters, after which the generated mudflow reached the so-called cottage district of Shovi. It probably took 8-10 minutes to reach the cottage area.

- Even the map of 1972 shows how much material was accumulating there and for how long. When the glaciers melt, where does the water go? Basically, the accumulated material is soaked with water, and as soon as it overcomes whatever's holding it, it comes crashing down.

Therefore, you should not settle there. It doesn't matter how many times it happened, once or five times. What happened there was a crime, 19 people died. The National Environmental Agency did not hide information until now, now they are forced to avoid the anger of the government.

The mud builds up, glacial sediments, not water. As all of this kept damming up, as soon as it exceeded the critical mass and overpowered the barrier, it broke through and set off. People died, it worries us. If there were no casualties, we wouldn't know how many times it happened. There are no specialists working there, we have no observation or monitoring. The tiny National Environmental Agency is intended for all of Georgia.

It’s not just Caucasus that’s the problem, it’s also Tbilisi, Rikoti, Kharagauli. As far as I know, we don’t even have disaster management plans. What makes you think it won’t happen again? It will recur where there’s elevation, Caucasus, where there are valleys, where there are settlements that shouldn’t be there.