Armenian Government Approves Aid Package for Flood Victims

YEREVAN — The Armenian government approved compensations for the victims of the recent floods in the Lori and Tavush provinces, the government reported on Thursday.

Armenia’s Interior Minister Vahe Ghazaryan revealed that the amount of compensation will be determined by the area of the damaged (or destroyed) housing, and beneficiaries will receive certificates.

Amid torrential rains, rivers flowing through the Tavush and Lori provinces burst their banks early on May 26, killing four people, flooding towns and villages located along them and severely damaging local infrastructure. It was the country’s worst flooding in decades.

The government said that the families of the four victims will receive 1 million drams ($2,600) each. It will provide one-off payments of between 40,000 and 60,000 drams to more than 850 survivors of the flooding who are now in need of financial aid.

The aid package also includes compensation for serious damage caused to homes in the flooded areas. A three-story apartment building in the Lori town of Alaverdi and two village houses were damaged so badly that they will have to be torn down.

The government will fully finance the purchase of new homes by the 18 families that lived there. According to Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan, the government’s Cadaster Committee will determine the amount of that compensation after estimating the market value of the lost properties.

The government will also help 245 other households in Lori and Tavush to renovate their homes damaged by flood waters. They are due to receive between 40,000 and 60,000 drams per square meter of property owned by them.

In addition, local residents will be compensated for their furniture and other household items destroyed by the floods. The compensation is set at 800,000 to 1.2 million drams per family.

“Our primary objective is to help people renovate their homes and again live there,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan. He described his government’s aid package as “quite solid.”

The package does not cover flooded orchards, other agricultural fields and businesses in Lori and Tavush. It thus remains unclear whether their owners can also count on government funding.

The floods also washed away multiple sections of the two national highways and a railway leading to Georgia as well as two dozen bridges. The government has asked Armenia’s international donors to help it rebuild them.