CAIRO - Before the nation's coastal and mountainous areas are hit again by heavy rain, the Government should reveal whether it has the resources to prevent a recurrence of last year's natural disaster, which hit Aswan, Sinai and the Red Sea regions. Worried inhabitants of these areas complain that the Government ignored their calls for help last year, only intervening " and in a very limited way " when it was too late. Hundreds of families were made homeless when their homes were inundated by the downpour. Manyhomes were totally destroyed, and tens of adults and children lost theirlives. Bedouin tribes in Sinai sustained especially heavy losses. Adding insult to injury, the Government blamed the victims for ignoring warnings from weathermen and geologists to build their homes in safer areas, away from the flood plains. But these people had no choice in the matter, because the Government outrageously failed to fulfil its promise to build them low-cost residential areas in safe areas. Perhaps things will get a little better for these people, in the light of an announcement from the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, which says that it has already allocated LE240 million to make safer over 150 residential areas of the nation vulnerable to flooding. However, the Ministry has not said whether any of this big budget will be used to build new homes for families living in the dangerous areas. Nor has the Ministry announced a deadline for this majorproject. The Ministry says that it plans to dig new channels to divert rainwater from residential areas vulnerable to flooding. Meanwhile, residents in various parts of Helwan Governorate have been warned by an opposition newspaper that they are at risk. Touring this governorate, located south of Cairo, journalists from Al-Wafd newspaper discovered that people in Maasara, Tora, Wadi Hof, Kozzika and Kaf el-Elw are most vulnerable, because there people's homes are built in the paths that rainwater takes. Another heavy downpour could, nonetheless, be a blessing in disguise. Ahmed Abdel-Khaleq, the minister of irrigation in the newly formed shadow Cabinet of Al-Wafd opposition Party suggests that the rainwater could be collected in reservoirs, then used for irrigation. If the water were channelled into reservoirs, people's homes would be spared too.
