“I'M going to send a flood on the earth to destroy every living thing…” (Genesis 6:17). “… all the outlets of the vast body of water beneath the earth burst open, all the flood gates of the sky were opened, and rain fell on earth for 40 days and nights (Genesis 11-12)!”
Why floods? Because God looked at the world and saw that it was evil, for the people were all living with evil lives (Genesis 6:12), Floods covered the world for the ‘whole year’ and Noah’s ark came to a rest on a mountain in the Ararat range (Genesis 8:4) [the Ararat range is several hundred miles long and believed to be in the drainage basin of the Caspian Sea but the 449-mile long Mount Ararat itself is in eastern Turkey].
Today, man has tortured the environment and it is reacting back in a mask of floods! Dwellers in Eastern and Northern Uganda are among over 420,000 people in 32 districts that have directly fallen victims of floods in the country by October 5, 2007.
The wrath of environment has spilled deluge onto over 100,000 pupils from 174 schools within 11 districts in northern and eastern Uganda. They couldn’t return to school for the third term! Tens of schools needed relocation to higher grounds! Flood-related diseases like jerry-jerry can’t let the affected people walk! Relief agencies need US$70m, an equivalent of about sh123.9b to assist victims of floods in the affected areas!
Although 150 stranded students of primary seven, senior four and six got a rare chance of traveling in a helicopter from Kitgum district to Gulu district for studies, the incident of floods remained a hot slap to students of other classes - for a fortnight!
This disaster emanates from harvesting trees without apt environmental guidance. Forest cover in Uganda has been reduced to 20% in the past 15 years! Rates of deforestation have accelerated above 2.2%. A report by Care International warns that deforestation risks starting a drought, increase flood cycles and reduce the volume of water in Lake Victoria, which consequences are a reality in Uganda as you read this article!
Besides, there is a paradigm shift in a mask of climate change. Greenhouse gases have accumulated because no trees to absorb lots of carbon dioxide emitted mainly from factories. The same trees absorb water thus protecting soil from erosion.
Floods are not the only consequent of massive depletion of plant cover; there are also landslides especially in the Elgon region plus deadly rolling stones! This terrorism of fatal floods has displaced hundreds of Acholi people back to internary displaced camps, which they left recently; after staying there for 20 years as war ravaged the region!
Unfortunately, these ill-fated people are not the only ones that have destroyed the environment. Floods are a natural punishment for the deeds of loggers in all regions. And of course God has not sent floods to the affected areas for He made a covenant with the world that, “…a flood will never again destroy all living beings (Genesis 8:15).”
It is our harsh treatment of environment that has invited floods – as a pay back package for degrading it! We better kneel before our precious environment and its creator (God) and ask for forgiveness! Believe it: a country that cannot control its floods is drowning!
As population increases and industries multiply, we need to plant a lot of trees. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the ability of plants to absorb water from the ground. Less water passes through plants before evaporating into the air. Now water is stagnating on the land, causing floods.
Our precious 68,800sq km Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake worldwide after 82,414sq km Lake Superior, had dried by two meters, although it has recovered by one metre. We shouldn’t be complacent with rising levels; the water is evaporating due to global warming, resulting from accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere!
Meteologists should endeavour to sensitise the public about the formation of rainfall in addition to reporting about when and where it will rain. I’m of the view that it would be more beneficial to tell people how human activities without prior environmental assessment could affect the formation of rainfall. Time is ripe for us to resort to scientific innovation and technology in preparation and prevention for calamities like floods.
The East Africa community (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi) should enact integrated management policy against deforestation. Floods should open the eyes of East Africa community to save the 75,000-acre Mabira forest, which government wanted to give to Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited (SCOUL) for sugarcane growing.
Mabira regulates rainfall, stores carbon, shelters 300 bird species, medicinal herbs, primates and organisms. Mabira filters water and it is a water-catchment area for Lake Victoria that is a dependant source of water for a dozen lakes and rivers. Let’s conserve!
Ends.
Word Count: 820.
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