Assistance for people affected by flooding
At least 7 people have been killed by flooding in eastern Romania, a region that in a couple of days saw the total amount of rain it usually gets the whole year
Corina Cristea, 17.09.2024, 14:00
The state of alert has been instated in the counties of Galați and Vaslui, in eastern Romania, a region that bears the brunt of the latest flooding. The measure was aimed at enabling local authorities to access resources to rebuild the areas destroyed by the flooding waters.
According to official data released, 26 towns and villages in the county of Galaţi and 20 in Vaslui, have been affected by heavy flooding, and the number of the households destroyed stands at 65 hundred. The urgent rebuilding of houses and buildings, as well as parts of the affected infrastructure such as roads and bridges, is a top priority, authorities say.
In a special meeting on Monday, the Executive approved emergency aids of up to 2 thousand Euros for every affected family and another 2 thousand for the families who lost people, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has announced.
Marcel Ciolacu: “The total amount of this first assistance programme is around 100 million lei. And I can assure the people affected by flooding that we aren’t going to stop until we have repaired all the bridges and roads in the area and have rebuilt all the households destroyed so that their lives may come back to normal as soon as possible.”
214 tons of food and over 200 thousand liters of water have been dispatched to the affected areas and the first supplies have already been distributed.
Another priority, the Prime Minister went on to say, is to enable the children in the affected areas to resume school classes.
Marcel Ciolacu: “For this reason we are providing four modular buildings that may serve as makeshift schools where children can attend classes until the situation comes back to normal. Local authorities jointly with the Ministry of Education are presently working in order to turn these temporary schools operational.”
Camps have also been made available for the flood victims and many institutions have launched appeals to solidarity and started collecting things. The Romanian Red Cross has launched an assistance campaign and has already sent trucks with water and food supplies.
The Romanian Waters has deployed teams which are operating in the areas consolidating the defence lines against flooding. Through its Solidarity Fund and Civil Protection Mechanism, the European Union will be providing assistance to the Romanians and the Europeans in the other member countries, the chief-negotiator for the Union’s budget, Romanian MEP Siegfried Muresan says, adding that he will call for a more flexible multi-annual budget, so that the bloc may react faster in emergency situations.
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