On February 7, 2024, a landslide killed nine people, including a father and his three children, in the village of Nergeeti, Baghdati. It took precisely ten days for the Ministry of Environmental Protection to blame this tragedy on heavy rainfall and once again claim that it could not save people.
We spent four months collecting evidence and news that the central and local governments knew as early as 2019 that the landslides in Nergeeti were occasionally active. In 2019, the yard of one of the residents of Nergeeti collapsed; this case was included in the annual geological bulletin of the National Environment Agency, and the City Hall of Baghdati even fortified his house. In 2017 and 2022, another local’s yard was inspected.
So, what caused the government’s inattention, and why was the danger that led to the loss of these four families not assessed in time? Our journalistic investigation will answer these questions.
The Night of the Disaster – Nergeeti, February 7
The six-member family of 76-year-old Gogutsa Soselia from Nergeeti has lived temporarily in Baghdati for over four months. On February 7, 2024, a landslide in Nergeeti damaged their house so severely that it became dangerous to live there. Today, Baghdati City Hall pays the rent for their apartment. The Soselia family will not be able to return to their village.
Before the disaster, it had been raining in Nergeeti for three days. That night, when the village was asleep, the ground suddenly gave way on the hill of the first street of Nergeeti. The landslide killed four families in a few seconds. Nine people died, including children. Rescuers found eight bodies quickly and one later. The road, gas, water pipes and power lines were damaged.
According to the National Environment Agency, the landslide’s total area was 4.45 hectares. The volume of the displaced landslide mass is estimated to be between 150,000 and 160,000 cubic meters.
The traces of the landslide are still clearly visible from Baghdati. Even from the road, you can see the treeless slope – a large strip of brown, dried mud that stands out against the surrounding greenery. You can also see the roofs of the surviving houses among the trees. Down the hill, on the bank of the Khaniskali River, you will come across roof fragments, broken pieces, and planks half buried in the ground. Everything indicates that a natural disaster hit this place. Seven houses across and beyond the landslide have been abandoned since February.
Gogutsa Soselia’s house stands on the slope of the hill, next to the landslide. The second floor’s balcony extends down to the ground with its roof, and the yard looks like it was plowed by a tractor. Blue beehives are at the entrance of the house. Around the beehives, pine frames, clothes, and furniture buried by the landslide have surfaced from the ground.
Gogutsa met me at the door of the house. She was overlooking the river that killed her neighbors. She still comes to this house; she looks after the beehives and two dogs and sometimes cleans the house.
“I feel sorry for this place,” says Gogutsa.
This is her husband’s family home, where they have lived since the 1970s. Their hard work has produced everything here.
“Don’t be afraid; I come here often,” she told me as I crawled under the roof, half-lying on the ground to enter the first-floor door.
“Here, there was a door,” Gogutsa points to the empty frame, “and here, we dumped the soil with a tractor.” The landslide threw this door over there for the first time. “If we had stayed in this room for the night, none of us would have survived,” she says as she shows us the rooms damaged by the landslide.
Instead of a parquet, the living room floor is covered with a thick layer of mud. The sofa is turned over. Sheets of wallpaper hang on the wall. On the table, rotten pillows are lying in mud and water. Behind the reception room is a pantry and a cellar, which are also full of mud. The groundmass entered only the first floor; the landslide did not reach the second floor, where all six family members slept.
“The water took out the table; it was floating outside. The curtains were completely torn. How did the water even move a table this heavy? The water flow was so strong.
Gogutsa recalls hearing the terrace falling at two o’clock in the morning and immediately called the neighbors—they thought it was an earthquake.
“It turns out that the ground has turned upside down here… The neighbor’s house was taken across the river without… Four children were killed: schoolchildren and one—a student. The water swept away nine people. Our neighbor’s cow stall saved us. The incoming ground mass hit it first,” Gogutsa recalls.
The government offered the Soselia family 30,000 GEL to build a new home, but Gogutsa says that at this price, it will be difficult for them to find land, build a house on it, or buy an apartment for a family of six.
In addition to the Soselias, seven families have been evacuated from the first street of Nergeeti. Today, everyone temporarily lives in Baghdati, on rent. Apart from Gogutsa, we were greeted by two more families—they still cannot leave their yards for too long and sometimes come back to look at their lands.
The City Hall of Baghdati informed us that five families living near the landslide have already bought a house with the compensation money allocated by the central government, and one family is living on rent. However, they didn’t say anything about this in the village (the seventh family refused to rent and lived with their son in Baghdati).
Was there anything suspicious before the disaster? Gogutsa only knows that the ground in her yard was constantly “creeping,” and water was occasionally coming down from the mountain. Gogutsa pointed out the soil that had just slid from the mountain, saying that although the tractors had straightened it, it started moving again.
“There is a river on this side, and what was left of the houses was on the other side. The landmass came with such strong speed that these four families completely disappeared. We were finding people piece by piece. We buried eight children in one day. It was a day of tragedy, but what could we have done?” This is how Mevlud Nergadze from Nergeeti, who lives on the second street of the same village, far from the landslide zone, remembers the tragedy of February 7. He is still afraid to go to sleep at night.
Mevlud Nergadze’s fear is not unfounded. The National Environment Agency and Baghdati City Hall knew that Nergeeti was prone to landslides, but the agency needed to study the site of the disaster in detail.
What Did the Government Know About the Impending Threat?
According to our research, the Environmental Protection Agency inspected 14 settlements in Baghdati in 2021, including the village of Nergeeti. As a result, an annual geographical bulletin was prepared, which explicitly stated that the development of landslide processes was expected the following year in the villages of Nergeeti, Dimi, First and Second Obcha, Tsilikhevi, Zegani, Fersati, and Shubani.
The same document also contained recommendations for the local government to implement to reduce risks. Additionally, it described the works that had already been carried out. For example, it was noted that the city hall built a protective wall on the second street of Nergeeti near the yard of one of the residents. Recommendations were also issued for other villages in Baghdati, such as Second Obcha, Zegani, Tsilikhevi, and Baghdati. The agency instructed the City Hall to:
– Arrange an anti-landslide wall
– Regulate surface waters
– Arrange an anti-erosion wall, etc.
Some of these recommendations have been implemented in these villages.
The geological bulletin details which municipality in Georgia, which village, and how many landslide-prone zones were studied. It also lists the recommendations the local government should follow to protect against landslides. However, no one controls whether City Hall fulfills the agency’s recommendations. This bulletin is sent to all relevant agencies and published on the agency’s website.
Nergeeti has been the agency’s focus many times before: the local government knew beforehand that the area was prone to landslides.
The Agency and the City Hall have known since 2017 that the landslide was active near the house of Darejan Robakidze, a resident. Her yard was inspected twice, in 2017 and 2022. This house is 70 meters away from the landslide that occurred in February. Despite the inspections, this place was not included in the National Environment Agency bulletins. They did not provide us with the documents confirming the research either. The City Hall also informed us that Darejan Robakidze refused to move out with rent. Darejan did not confirm this with us.
Over the years, the owner repeatedly requested inspections of the area around her house by the Baghdati City Hall. She claimed that in winter, the snow would “come like an avalanche and sometimes destroy the kitchen, sometimes the back part of the house.” The City Hall, in turn, asked the Agency to check the area.
According to the law, specialists from the Geology Department of the Agency evaluate the homesteads and residential houses when the local municipality requests or when a message is received on the agency’s hotline. To rule out danger, the surrounding areas of these places are visually inspected.
In an official letter, the Agency wrote to us that during the recent years’ inspections, they also inspected the area of Darejan Robakidze’s neighbourhood but did not notice any signs of initiation and activation of landslide processes on the slope.
“The geologists even wrote that a slope and an 80 percent risk [of a landslide] exists. The City Hall brought me a 12-page report stating it was impossible to live here… They told me that the mountain must be fortified… What will strengthen such a big mountain?” – tells us Darejan Robakidze.
We asked the National Environment Agency to share copies of the reports about Darejan Robakidze’s land. They informed us that the documents had been sent to the City Hall of Baghdati Municipality. The City Hall then redirected us back to the Agency, which ultimately did not provide us with the material. We requested the report protocols from the City Hall for a second time. They informed us that the documents contained personal information and could not be shared. However, personal data could be redacted, and the report could still be provided.
The documents were not found in Darejan’s home either. She told us that she had taken them to the rented apartment. We could not find recommendations about Darejan’s house in the National Environment Agency’s annual newsletters.
The City Hall of Baghdati wrote that Darejan Robakidze’s house and yard have been periodically observed since 2022. The City Hall did not mention the inspections conducted in 2017. However, the local self-government should have had this information if the agency is believed.
Darejan Robakidze lives temporarily in Baghdati, with his son’s family. He also went there on the night of the disaster. He says he only comes to the village in sunny weather to look at the yard and the animals. He also told us how his yard used to flood during the rains due to the downpour from the mountain.
“My neighbor who died used to say ‘the mountain has moved down… I am afraid that we should leave before something happens.’ When it rained, the basement was completely wet. We were still living there. What could we have done?” – Darejan tells us.
Talking to the local population, we got the feeling that everyone could see the land’s erosion, but no one could imagine it, and no one from the government clearly explained to them how big the danger was that they were facing. Maybe that was why even Darejan’s neighbor, Aleksandre Robakidze, did not consider the landslide threat.
Aleksandre lives at the end of the first street in Nergeeti, on the slope of the mountain. He met us at the gate, having come to the village to take care of the vineyard. He was returning to Baghdati, where he and his family lived in a house rented and paid for by the City Hall.
Aleksandre Robakidze’s yard was reinforced in 2013 due to soil erosion. Although he does not recall exactly who did the work, he specifically mentioned that he had applied to the city hall to have his yard strengthened.
The experiences of Nergeeti residents indicate that they have been aware of the danger for years and have repeatedly informed the government. This prompted us to ask the City Hall of Baghdati what measures they have taken to strengthen landslide-prone areas in Nergeeti over the last five years.
In response, we received a list of performed works that mentioned Nergeeti only once. It noted that the yard of Luiza Inakavadze, affected by the landslide, was reinforced with a wall in 2019. These works cost the City Hall 9,243 GEL. Documents from the State Procurement Agency reveal that immediately after completion, the wall installed near Inakavadze’s yard collapsed, and the company rebuilt it at its own expense.
This indicates that City Hall was aware of the landslide issues in Nergeeti. In 2021-2022, Luiza Inakavadze’s house was included in the agency’s geological bulletin. The bulletin noted that the landslide dynamics in the vicinity were low, posing a moderate risk, and recommended building a landslide protection wall around the house. Inakavadze’s house is located on 2nd Nergeeti Street, somewhat distant from where the disaster occurred on February 7.
These accounts demonstrate that the Baghdati City Hall had information about the anticipated landslide in Nergeeti years prior and was aware of several landslide-prone areas in the village.
On February 13, a few days after the disaster, we asked the City Hall of Baghdati if they had implemented any of the recommendations mentioned in the National Environment Agency’s bulletin. They replied, “the document is informative and does not contain specific recommendations.” However, the bulletin explicitly lists the work and what has already been completed.
Given the need for more comprehensive answers, we requested a face-to-face interview with a competent person at Baghdati City Hall. They instructed us to request the information in writing, but we still did not receive a satisfactory response to our questions.
We also sought an interview with Merab Gaprindashvili, the head of the Geological Department at the National Environment Agency. They responded that they would ask him to contact us if he agreed, but no one has contacted us.
What would a responsible government do in this case?
Heavy rainfall (81mm), intense melting of the snow cover on the slopes, and deforestation in past years were the official causes of the Nergeeti natural disaster. The report recorded that it took 30-40 seconds for the landslide to reach the population, which, according to the agency, means that the alarm system, if it existed, could not have prevented the village from this outcome.
Lasha Sukhishvili, senior geologist of the Department of Geography of the Institute of Earth Sciences and the National Centre for Seismic Monitoring, also confirms that since the landslide occurred instantly, it would have been impossible to warn the population in this limited period. But if the agency knew that the place was generally dangerous, it could have:
– Evacuated people on time.
– Installed a monitoring system on the site (which would detect small activations before the landslide, although there is no hundred percent guarantee of this).
– Do not rely solely on visual inspection; conduct a detailed area survey.
“Visual inspection of the area is the first stage, followed by the second stage, and usually, the agency also writes in its reports that this is only a visual survey, and the next detailed survey is necessary. Unfortunately, it is a common practice in our country that detailed research is no longer done. Since the geologists examined the area visually, we think it is enough to establish the diagnosis. However, it is nothing; it is just a first step,” – Lasha Sukhishvili told us.
The Geology Department of the National Environment Agency controls landslide zones throughout the country. According to the regulations of the Agency, the department is obliged to assess the situation in settlements and their surrounding areas when natural geological processes (landslides, mudslides, rockfalls, etc.) are activated. They are also tasked with determining the negative consequences, assessing the risk of danger, providing recommendations to the population in an emergency, determining the causes of damage to homesteads and buildings, and preparing appropriate reports for implementing emergency measures.
“As a rule, local self-government is responsible for controlling such situations. In places where there is real local self-government, unlike the fictitious one in Georgia, the local self-government should have an appropriate service, including geologists. If I were the mayor, I would have difficulty figuring out the landslide map. Therefore, local governments, lacking local resources, should announce a tender to assess which landslide poses the highest risk to the population and infrastructure,” Lasha Sukhishvili told us.
We specifically asked which City Hall or N(N)LE office is responsible for monitoring landslide-prone areas and implementing the Agency’s recommendations. We requested the regulations of the department or N(N)LE accountable for this case, the staff list, and their annual activity reports submitted to the City Hall, if any.
The City Hall informed us that they have a permanent commission, but they did not specify who is included in it or its function. They should have explained how they determine which recommendations of the National Environment Agency should be prioritized. Later, we were told that the findings of the National Environment Agency were reported to various departments of the City Hall, but they did not specify which departments.
After not receiving complete answers to our letters, we again requested an interview with the City Hall. They suggested requesting public information and said that a specialist in the field would answer our questions. We asked who the “field specialist” was and whether they had one, such as a geologist. They replied that they do not have a geologist in the City Hall.
We also discovered that the National Environment Agency does not conduct satellite monitoring of landslide areas in Baghdati today. The report written after the tragedy in Nergeeti noted that after the natural disaster, they began to observe individual areas of Nergeeti, and this process continues today. However, they did not specify which areas they were inspecting or by what method. Here is the exact answer they sent:
“By the approved regulation, twice a year (spring-autumn), the National Environment Agency carries out geological monitoring throughout the country, within the settlements and in their surrounding areas, and during the activation of geological disasters in force majeure situations. A quick assessment of existing conditions and the possible developments after the disaster are determined. At the same time, based on received letters/messages and hotline reports from citizens, the agency goes to the site. It assesses the homestead plots, residential houses, and various infrastructure objects from a geological point of view and determines the causes of their damage. Appropriate conclusions and recommendations are prepared and sent to the appropriate addressees. Similar actions are carried out throughout the country, and Nergeeti in Baghdati municipality is no exception.”
Does Danger Await Other Villages of Baghdati? What Is the Government Doing?
We carefully reviewed the bulletins issued by the National Environment Agency for 2020-2023. These documents provide rough predictions of where landslides may occur in the coming years and what the local government can do. In the case of Baghdati, the list of recommendations was as follows:
- Tsitelkhevi village: Cutting trenches on the landslide body to remove groundwater is completed.
- Dimi village: Construction of an embankment wall and drainage system is completed.
- Second Obcha village: Regulation of surface and groundwater and repair of damaged supporting walls of the house – completed.
- Nergeeti village: An anti-slide wall near a local’s house has been installed.
- Shubani village: The soil application for land leveling and constructing road support has been completed.
The City Hall has implemented these recommendations, but there are other places in the villages of Baghdati for which no report has been issued, and the government’s response is not timely. The example of Nergeeti showed that these recommendations alone do not suffice, and landslides remain a risk for those living in that area. In 2019, for instance, a recommended wall was built for Luiza Inakavadze, but it covered only a tiny section, and the landslide affected a much larger area than Inakavadze’s yard.
After visiting Nergeeti, we also went to Tsitelkhevi. The locals contacted us, stating that their area is in a landslide danger zone and no one is paying attention to them.
The middle part of Margalita Paikidze’s two-story house in Tsitelkhevi is cracked and deformed, and the ground behind the yard has collapsed. She told us it has been like this for ten years, though neither an earthquake nor a landslide has occurred. However, for years, only five of the 17 residents remained in this area of Tsitelkhevi due to the fear of landslides. Part of the population started migrating during the Soviet period in the 1980s, and another part left 30 years ago.
“Let us go around the house to see how it falls into the ground. My son has poured concrete into the garage nine times, but nothing seems to help. The cracks are increasing every year. It will be ten years since we noticed the cracks,” Margalita Paikidze told us.
Margalita Paikidze, who lives on the higher ground of the village, tells us that after the natural disaster in Nergeeti, no one came to check on her despite repeated requests sent to the City Hall. She only heard from her neighbors that the National Environment Agency came to the village. Still, they only inspected the lower flat part of the village and did not visit Margalita’s district.
The agency’s last bulletin, issued in 2023 and containing forecasts for 2024, listed the Tsitelkhevi highway and its surrounding houses among the risk zones. Margalita lives 2 km away from there, in the third district of Tsitelkhevi. However, the agency representatives did not visit all risky areas in the village.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s geological bulletin also mentioned the activation of landslide areas in the village of Shubani. We visited this village and saw the landslide zone. Residents told us that three families were waiting for evacuation. However, they do not know when or where to get a new home.
People still live in the villages of the Baghdati region, which face the threat of landslides after every heavy rainfall and are potential natural disaster zones. The government cannot assure residents that they will be protected from landslides. Based on past experiences, it seems likely that the government will again blame any future tragedies on heavy rainfall and severe meteorological conditions.
