Uzbek-born billionaire Alisher Usmanov donated $15mn to help those affected by the busting of the Sardoba dam last week that had destroyed dozens of villages and had displaced a total of around 100,000 people from their homes.
Torrential rain caused the wall of the dam on the Syr Darya river to collapse on May 1 sending a flood of water out over the river basin.
Usmanov gifted $15mn to help in the relief effort for the families affected in the Sardoba dam tragedy: $10mn for Uzbekistan and $5mn for Kazakhstan, Usmanov’s press service confirmed.
Uzbekistan took the brunt of the flood. An estimated 90,000 people were ordered to leave from 24 villages in the Sardoba, Akaltyn and Mirzaabad districts of the Syrdarya province in Uzbekistan to safe areas.
In Kazakhstan, more than a dozen villages were flooded in the Maktaral district of the Turkestan province. In total, more than 100,000 people were evacuated in both countries.
This is the second humanitarian donation Usmanov has made to Uzbekistan this year. In March and in April he allocated a total of $25mn to fight the COVID-19 infection. The funds were transferred to the Charity and Health of Uzbekistan Public Fund (Mehr-Shafqat va Salomatlik). The fund was created to provide financial assistance to the government of Uzbekistan in the fight against the pandemic.
