Lands and Environment Minister Christophe Bazivamo has urged the public to take serious recent warnings by climatologists that the country had experienced a decline in rains and the heavy showers were expected in the near future.

The nature alert was issued by the Meteorology Department of Ministry of Infrastructure. It also warned of heavy rains in the next two years could cause disease outbreak.

"The country has experienced decline in rainfall which I believe everyone is aware of its major causes,” Bazivamo said. He largely attributed the decline to reduction in forests and marshlands.

"People should respect our environmental protection policies and leave fragile areas like wetlands and step slopes to avoid nature disaster that would claim their lives.” 

 The best way to handle nature hazards is the earlier preparation to deal with it, said Bazivamo.

A team of climatologists recently warned that harsh climate changes were likely to hit East African countries over the next three years.

The team in their report published early this month in a US Geophysical Journal forecasted plentiful sunspots in four years ahead that will follow the heavy rains in the region.

They stressed that increasing sunspot indicate a rise in the sun’s energy output, which is expected in 2011-2012. 

If the newfound pattern holds, rainfall would also peak the year 2010.

"With the help of these findings, we can now say when especially rainy seasons are likely to occur, several years in advance,” Curt Stager the team leader was quoted by the journal as saying.

The public health officials could ramp up prevention measures against insect-borne diseases associated with flooding, before such epidemics begin, he added.

 "The hope is that people on the ground will use this research to predict heavy rainfall events,” Stager said. "Those events lead to erosion, flooding, and disease.”

The early adoption of such measures is vital to stop any disaster that might devastate the country and world in general on the soaring scale, Bazivamo said in an interview on Tuesday.

The minister said that natural hazards could be curbed if people took early preventive measures.

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