Highlights
Improved spring belg rains reduced demands on water trucking, but triggered massive flooding and an urgent need for water treatment chemicals. The kiremt summer rains are expected to be timely and most areas of the country that benefit from the seasonal rains are likely to have significant rainfall activitiy. With a global La Niña event also foreseen, further flash-flooding and flooding may occur.
At least 19,000 households were displaced by flooding across the country. The National Flood Task Force predicts at least half a million people will be affected by floods, with more than 200,000 already displaced. The Contingency Plan developed for the spring belg rains is being developed into a response plan, and will be honed for the summer meher rains.
Following a prioritization exercise, the Government and partners identified US$703 million as urgently needed. A prioritization statement was prepared and launched by NDRMC and humanitarian partners on 10 May. Participants identified an increase in the Humanitarian Requirement Documents (HRD) from $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion. The HRD will be formally reviewed in late June following the conclusion of the belg assessment at the beginning of June.
Major improvements in food dispatch and distribution performance were achieved in the first months of 2016 with the transport of relief food increasing from 6,000MT per day at the start of the year up to 17,000MT per day.
Situation Overview
Improved spring belg rains reduce demands on water trucking, but triggered massive flooding and an urgent need for water treatment chemicals
Improved belg rains triggered flooding throughout the country displacing at least 19,557 households in Afar (671), Amhara (420), Harari (287), Oromia (5,322), SNNP (2,972) and Somali (9,885) regions.
The National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC)-led Flood Task Force (FTF) estimates that some 486,000 people will be affected by river overflows and flash floods during the 2016 belg season, and 190,000 people across the country are likely to be displaced at some point. In response to flash-flooding in Somali region, humanitarian partners distributed at least 1,100 Emergency Shelter ES/non-food item (NFI) kits. The ES/NFI cluster is dispatching kits to Oromia (1,000) and Somali (1,000) regions to flood-affected households in priority woredas. An additional 3,300 have been received for a distribution plan coordinated with the NDRMC.
The Government issued a flood alert to flood-prone woredas and communities about the likely occurrences of flooding and the necessary precautionary measures to minimize the humanitarian impact of flooding, including river waterlevel monitoring and evacuation of people residing along major rivers. An urgent need for household water treatment chemicals increased in areas where families collect surface water, which can increase water-borne infections and malnutrition. Supplies are required for 3 million households for the coming three months.
For the 2016 kiremt rains, the National Meteorological Agency (NMA) forecasts above normal rainfall in the northern, north-western and north-eastern parts of the country. Western and southwestern Ethiopia can anticipate normal-toabove normal rainfall activity. Many parts of central and eastern Ethiopia, including the southern highlands, are also expected to receive normal tending to above normal rainfall activity. In general, with the anticipation of an enhanced La Niña influence during the upcoming summer rains, most of the kiremt benefiting areas of the country are likely to have significant rainfall activity. While this could boost agricultural production in highland areas that were affected by the poor performing rains in 2015/16, above normal rainfall could also spell disaster for communities in mid and lowland areas who were already affected by flood and mudslides following the late but torrential belg rains.