After the heavy snowing this winter, danger of floods and prevention of disastrous consequences have been the top issues among the relief agencies as well as the Government officials from the Ministry of rural development and ministry of food and agriculture.

The guests in the Kabul studio also named the places and rivers with high possibility of floods such as Helmand River basin, Kunar River, Kunduz River and Panshir River. The Amu Daryia River in the northern Afghanistan already caused floods and damaged houses and caused deaths of several people in the north. UN agencies in conjunction with Afghan central and local government officials and with help of ISAF troops have already begun relief work and foodstuffs deliveries to floods effected provinces of Khost, Badakhshan, Farah, Paktika, Ghor and Zabul.

Minister of Rural Development, Mohammad Hanif Hatmar, who was also appointed deputy chairman of the government agency dealing with helping drought and flood effected people, says the main task of the agency is to collect and distribute foodstuffs and clothes to the people in need.

The Minister of Rural Development, Hanif Mohammad Atmar, who was present at the discussion.

The participants named some of the biggest problems international and governmental relief agencies face during such catastrophe and that is the communication problems with the provinces and villages in remote areas as well as transportation difficulties while delivering foodstuffs to the people. Also, as far as water dams are concerned, according to the guests, they are full and technically insufficient to help prevent floods. Therefore, the absence of river water flow regulation using these dams is another cause of floods in Afghanistan.

According to the officials, the people living in or near the river basins, which are empty of water due to droughts in Afghanistan, are the highest possible victims of floods and therefore should be warned well in advance. The guests in the studio also appealed to the Afghan people living in these areas that they should inform the government and international aid agencies workers arriving into the regions about location of the places on the maps to ease the access of the relief workers to these effected areas.