Algeria to draw up emergency land chart to face up to floods

Algerian Prime Minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, has enjoined the water resources ministerial department and the heads of the relevant Institutes to draw up a national territorial map aimed at facing up to any devastating floods to be brought about by surging seawaters or torrential rains in certain floods-prone regions of the country including the capital Algiers.

In this connection, Algiers has been classified among the 20 cities in the world liable to huge floods by the year 2050, according to a high-profile assessment report issued of late by the specialized US news magazine “Nature Climate Change”.

Other Algerian towns and cities notably Tamanrasset, Ghardaia, Chlef, Khenchla, Tarf and others were also picked out as liable to be submerged by large-scale floods owing to manifold negative factors and parameters induced by climate change and global warming.

The assessment report warned that up to one hundred thousand people in those areas could perish if no serious remedial measures to counter the looming specter of huge floods were not taken beforehand by the Algerian authorities.

Mr Abdelmalek Sellal urged the parties concerned to speed up the drawing up of this preventive national land map by involving all and sundry notably experts from the national meteorology center and the national space agency which will have resort to satellite pictures to be used  by the latter as part of the smooth implementation of this salutary action plan.