FLOODED UKRAINE ASKS FOR HELP
On 30 July, Undersecretary of Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Laimonas Talat-Kelpša received Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine Ihor Prokopchuk and expressed condolences regarding the casualties of the flood in Ukraine on behalf of Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Petras Vaitiekūnas.
Ambassador Ihor Prokopchuk handed in to the Undersecretary of the Ministry an official request of the Ukrainian Government to provide financial, humanitarian, and technical support which would help to rectify the consequences of the natural disaster in Ukraine. The document informs that the damage caused by the floods was estimated at 7 billions Hryvnas or almost one billion Euros.
Undersecretary of the Ministry L.Talat-Kelpša asked for more detailed information about the humanitarian and technical support that was needed in particular, and promised to take prompt action to provide all the possible assistance to Ukraine.
Ambassador I.Prokopchuk thanked for Lithuania’s initiative in collecting support to the Ukrainian people who had suffered due to this natural disaster.
According to the most recent data of the Ukrainian Government, from 23 through 27 July Western Ukraine suffered from flood, 22 people were reported dead, including 6 children. More than 40,000 houses in 185 settlements and almost 34,000 hectares of arable land were under water.
The flood damaged over 900 bridges and almost 680 km of roads. Currently the evacuation of people from the disaster zone continues. On 28 July, Ukraine’s President V.Yushchenko declared six affected areas of Ukraine as zones of an ecological emergency situation for three months.
