ALMATY , 14 March (IRIN) - Emergency workers are bracing themselves for possible flooding in southern Kazakhstan as an anticipated cold snap is expected to further aggravate an ice jam blocking a major river.

Ice jams occur when frozen rivers swell and rising water breaks the ice layer on the surface into large chunks which float downstream and often pile up near narrow passages or near obstructions such as bridges or dams. As such, ice jams slow the normal flow of water in a river and can trigger floods, specialists say.

An ice jam some 35-40 cm thick is drifting down the Syrdarya River in the Kyzylorda province of Kazakhstan, Mukhit Akdavletov, an official from the Kyzylorda regional emergencies department, told IRIN on Tuesday.

According to specialists, the combination of an expected cold snap in a week's time that would make the ice cover thicker, and a greater amount of upstream water, because of spring, is likely to cause the river to burst its banks.

"Emergency teams are on the spot carrying out monitoring," Akdavletov said.

The ice jam is expected to pass through Kazaly District, where flooding poses more of a threat as there are more villages on the riverbanks there, before it moves into the less inhabited Aral Sea area.

In February this year, more than 2,000 people were evacuated in the area after the Syrdarya burst its banks in several places and flooded nearby houses.

This is not the first year that local residents have been evacuated because of flooding. While there was no serious flooding in 2006, floods in 2005 led to the displacement of more than 500 people from areas around the Syrdarya River and the previous year 2,000 people were evacuated after 600 sq km of land was flooded.

These floods have caused millions of dollars-worth of damage in recent years.

In their search for a lasting solution, local authorities in southern Kazakhstan are urging the central government to allocate about US $16 million to relocate thousands of people from areas that are regularly flooded when the Syrdarya River overflows during the spring thaw.

"We have asked for this from the government but this is [still] under discussion," Nurlybek Nalibayev, Kyzylorda's deputy mayor, told IRIN from his office on Tuesday.

Many of the houses prone to floods were originally built as summer homes but are now inhabited year-round. If the government agrees to allocate funds, the money will be used to buy up land in the area, compensate residents for their properties and implement flood-prevention measures such as shoring up the dam in the river, Nalibayev said.

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