The Mosy Dangerous Types Of Disasters In Egypt!

 When we think about Egypt, the first thing that crosses our minds is camels, and when we see camels, we know that we are in the Desert. Despite that the middle east and northern Africa in general is more deserted area, the same mentioned desert and the middle east experienced a very rare cyclone where state of emergency have been declared in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. In march 2020 middle east storms that were known as “The Dragon” or “The Dragon storms”, brought heavy rain, thunderstorms, floods and sandstorms. This storm system, formed a large severe cyclone over the Nile delta on march 12, 2020 and moved northeast over the middle east. This storm resulted at least 21 deaths in Egypt, and even caused snow in the Tabuk area in Saudi Arabia! Prior to the Dragon Storms, in 1994 a massive flash flood hit Egypt, which was considered one of the worst natural disasters that Egypt have faces for decades. 

The worst natural disaster in the past two decades was the November 1994 flash floods that affected 134 villages in Upper Egypt with 600 deaths and over 300 injuries reported while about 140,000 people were rendered homeless following the destruction of more 20,000 houses and buildings.

A recent flood also occurred in Egypt on november 2021, where heavy rain didn't only result in causing materialistic damages, but it also resulted in it brought thousands of scorpions into the streets and homes. The fact that the results after the floods, were more severe from the flood itself. The scorpions occupied the residential parts of the city of Aswan and the surrounding areas. The Egyptian media, said that three people have died as a result of scorpion stings and more than 503 people were treated in hospital after suffering scorpion bites. 

 

The flood of Aswan affected 60 families, where six individuals were injured when the roof of a building collapsed due to the severe weather (Mentioning that Egypt infrastructure is so weak, and more than 72% of the population earn less than 5$ per day). According to reports, the flood damaged and destroyed around 23 houses, and heavy rain in the city of Aswan brushed away tens of bodies from graveyards in the south of the city.  Not to forget that the flood resulted in power outage and water cut for safety reasons. 

With that being said, it is important to mention some solutions to avoid the destruction for this dilemma. It is know that Egypt as a  country's has a poor infrastructure and dilapidated sewage and drainage systems. Similarly, Egypt has no comprehensive rainwater drainage system and relies on a 105-year-old drainage network to siphon rainwater. Some reports mentioned that flash floods and severe rain or  bad weather weather in general was also blamed on multiple occasions for  train crashes in the capital for example in November 2020 13 people were injured, in  train crush due to the bad weather.  Two people were electrocuted and killed in the floods; the sum of deaths was at least 21 persons. The intensity of the 2020 cyclone is 6 standard deviations higher than normal, which makes it exceptionally very rare, and may not happen anytime soon, but Egypt is still vulnerable to Tycoons, flash floods, and any other forms of natural disasters. 

Since floods in Egypt are recurring, and some don't only result in  heavy rain and cause martial damages,but they can also wake up an army of lethal scorpions into the streets and homes which may result in a greater number of injuries and casualties than the flood itself, such as the disaster that took place in Aswan where 503 people were hospitalized from scorpions bites. It is recommended that Egypt: 

- Update its educational system, amd implement programs to educate children on how to protect themselves and their loved ones in case of a disaster. 

- Egypt is recommended to consider creating an earthquake insurance and a flood insurance policy through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), or at least some sort of insurance for people, so they could be compensated in case a disaster take place, noting that Egypt hard working class don't have the financial sufficiency to rebuild what was destroyed. 

- implement evacuation policies at schools, shopping centers, government establishments, mosques and churches.  

- Give students and employees a training to avoid wires and electric ports, systems.. to avoid electrocution, noting that Egypt in every flash flood numbers of people get hospitalized because of this issue. 

- Update all the sewer and drainage systems in the country to avoid highways and major roads from floods in case of an emergency. 

Another hazard that Egypt face is the extreme climate, it is once said that when someone think about Africa, the first thing that crosses their minds is desert, Egypt is no exception, as 96% of Egypt's total area is desert. For this reason, Egypt has a hot deserted climate. Where it is generally extremely dry in every 96%  of the country land , which the exception of the northern part of the Mediterranean coast, where this area receives rainfalls in winter. Receiving rain falls doesn't necessarily  mean that the country doesn't face rarity of rain. Egypt is known with extreme heat during summer months, where the northern coast has a more moderate daytime temperature during summer.  

Egypt is extremely unprepared and vulnerable to water scarcity, droughts and rising sea levels, and other complications that are resulted due to the climate change. Egypt should and already is implementing adaptation strategies, because without adaptation the country agriculture, tourism, communities who lives closes to the sea shores will be at particular RISK. Therefore, adaptation is a key to survive. 

 Egypt as a whole is vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Due to a lot of factors some of them are widespread poverty, recurrent droughts, inequitable land distribution, and overdependence on rain-fed agriculture… While Egypt struggle with adaptation especially because it intersects with over population that is on an increase every day, development pressure (as the country needs so many years of efforts to develop itself economically, infrastructure, educationally…), unbalanced land distribution as the vast majority of the population is located only in few major cities, along with water management that is already regulating most of available water resources, and agricultural systems that are often not adapted to local conditions.

 As the adaptation plans that Egypt is trying to implement  are mostly concentrating on rising the adaptive capacity of the different systems, by changes in processes, practices, or structures to reduce climate risks. In developing countries, the priority of these plans is the highly vulnerable systems to climate change. Therefore, the high vulnerability of the agricultural sector put it on top of the priority list of adaptation plans. Adaptation to climate change in Egypt is a major issue from the perspectives of food production, rural population stabilization, and distribution of water resources. Previous studies have addressed adaptation in a top-down approach, evaluating theoretical options with little relation to current agricultural management. There is a need to incorporate the value of the management knowledge for formulating adaptation measures for agriculture in a bottom-up approach as this is the major sector acutely skewed by SLR. However, to date, there is little evidence that the international community has seriously considered the implications for population location and infrastructure planning as a means of adapting to the impacts of SLR in many developing countries including Egypt (Dasgupta, et al., 2007). As for Egypt it is really important to take advantage of the vast area that they have, they should consider updating their infrastructure, especially their drainage and water systems. Egypt should also take advantage of its land size, and start thinking and making plans to build new cities other than the major cities like Cairo and Aswan, to reduce the overcrowding and overpopulation near the Nile Delta. If Egypt work on this factor, the economy will revive itself, and the country will be less vulnerable to natural disasters, it will reduce the casualties and the damages and it will keep the economy safe. 

If I was to build a house in Egypt I would choose Damanhur City,  the Capital of Beheira Governorate. Located 99 miles northwest of Cairo, and 43 miles from Alexandria, in the middle of the western Nile Delta. I would choose this city because flash floods are rare there, and natural disasters in general are rare to occur, along with its good weather in comparison to other major cities in Egypt. Damanhur also is 242,000 person, while the Capital Cairo population is 22 million.  

Resources: 

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