Esmeralda Topi
The morning of October 4, 2024 found Vlora submerged under water. Torrential rain covered entire neighborhoods, so much so that from media drones the city resembled “Venice”, where instead of gondolas, cars sailed.
Vlora was brought to its knees by the rains for several days, highlighting the weaknesses of a depreciated drainage system and a lack of institutional response. However, Prime Minister Edi Rama had another explanation for the massive flooding of the coastal city.
“We saw what happened in Austria and we saw what happened in the days when Vlora flooded here, in Bosnia where many people lost their lives… There is a simple explanation beyond the popular and tendentious analyses that are made of the floods, that the formation of precipitation has changed,” he said .
The Prime Minister placed emphasis on the intensity of the rainfall, suggesting that even an “excellent” infrastructure would not withstand the first blow without organization and training of the structures. Audits revealed the opposite.
The flood was preventable.
A detailed report by the Supreme State Audit Office on the massive floods of 2024 in Vlora, recently published, has findings that refute the “precipitation formation” narrative.
The main cause of the floods, according to the Albanian Supreme Audit Office, is related to the lack of cleaning of drainage channels for decades, which are the main arteries of rainfall drainage for the city’s relief.
“ The drainage channels KK2 Akërni, KK3 Akërni and KUL Orikum, were found to have not been cleaned for more than 15 years, while segments within the city have not been cleaned for over 30 years” – KLSH.
Cleaning the canals and rehabilitating the drainage system is an urgent task, the State Supreme Audit Office emphasizes, because otherwise, the city is always at risk of flooding.
Another problem, according to the SAI, was the failure of the Akërnia Hydropower Plant to operate at full capacity. On the day of the flood, this hydropower plant operated at only 45% of capacity, with no backup pumps, no emergency generator and low electrical voltage. The SAI adds that the District Council did not declare a state of civil emergency, while the Municipality did not request an assessment of the damage to the homes.
“In conclusion, if the entire infrastructure and drainage canal system had been functional and operating at full capacity, the risk of the city of Vlora experiencing flooding, such as that of 04.10.2024, would have been low,” argues the Supreme State Audit.
As a result of the floods, the Municipality of Vlora identified 375 damaged families, for which it allocated a compensation fund of 54 million lek.
Responsibility is institutional
The Vlora floods in October 2024 highlighted not only the technical weaknesses of the drainage system, but also deep-seated governance problems.
Agron Haxhimali emphasizes that they were “the result of accumulated failures in the management of underground and surface drainage infrastructure and not simply of intense rainfall.” “The flooding was exacerbated by insufficient cleaning of canals and the limited capacity of the dam,” he adds.
In the same critical vein, Zef Preçi sees the KLSH’s finding as evidence of the way the country is governed. “The drainage channels have not been cleaned for more than 15 years, an indicator of the ambiguity of competencies, corruption and growing clientelism,” he says.
Preçi accuses the government of lack of transparency and dubious tenders.
“The ‘icing on the cake’ is the government that does not bear any responsibility but ‘turns pain into strength’ by conducting new tenders, even these most suspected of being corrupt,” Preçi emphasizes.
Both experts agree that the root of the problem is institutional negligence and lack of maintenance, requiring a profound reform in water management and a clear division of responsibilities between institutions.
Conclusion
The flood of October 4, 2024 in Vlora was preventable and cannot be justified by unusual rainfall, but because the drainage system is missing. And this fact makes the government’s narrative not only inaccurate, but also dangerous, because it hides responsibility and delays the solutions that are urgently needed in Vlora.
Based on the data collected, we categorize Prime Minister Edi Rama’s statement that the Vlora flood in October 2024 was a consequence of “precipitation formation” as untrue.
