“These days when we need to be highly concentrated on the elimination of the devastating consequences of the disaster, we have to in a simultaneous manner address to disinformation and forged data,” said Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili at the briefing.

The Speaker extended condolences to families and relatives of the victims of this “unprecedented scale” tragedy. He thanked local authorities, the rescuers, volunteers and all those revealing civic courage and solidarity and set an example of caring about others.

According to the Speaker, most of the information distributed in the media about the government’s response to the landslide in the Shovi resort aimed to cause tension and anxiety in society.

Below is his full statement as delivered:

“15 years have passed since the national hero of Georgia, Giorgi Antsukhelidze perished and today, I would like to pay tribute to all Georgian heroes fallen for the territorial integrity of Georgia. Almost a week ago, a devastating tragedy hit the Shovi resort, which is unprecedented in its scale and consequences in the nearest history of Georgia. And I would like to once again express my heartfelt condolences to the families of the perished amid the disaster, to the Racha region and the entire Georgia; this is a tragedy that will be hardly deleted from our memory. I would like to express my profound appreciation to the Chief and members of the Emergency Staff, especially the Single Mandate MP for Racha-Lechkhumi-Kvemo Svaneti, Mr Gocha Enuidze since he has remained round-the-clock in the disaster zone and has represented the Parliament. I would like to express words of particular gratitude to our rescue forces who managed and evacuated 210 persons safe and sound from the disaster zone. As you may know, according to the latest information, 33 citizens are announced missing, however, the morning data reveals that 20 of them are found dead. And under such a critical moment solidarity and mutual assistance are imperative. Thus, I would like to particularly thank, first of all, the residents of the village Glola, who were the first on-site, and all the citizens who demonstrated particular civil courage and humanity. Unfortunately, these days when we need to be highly concentrated on the elimination of the devastating consequences of the disaster, we have to in a simultaneous manner address to disinformation and forged data. As it is crystal clear, the hatred of the Government and the immense desire to get in the spotlight, blind some individuals to the extent that they even resort to forging, believing and distributing filthy lies. The situation we witness on TV or social media these days can be freely estimated as an informational attack on Georgian society with the aim to trigger distrust of the state, confuse the society and sow panic. Actually, it was a clear simulation of the informational attacks that we witnessed that the Georgian society may be exposed to during crises and emergencies. And appallingly, these disinformation campaigns and streams are initiated and realized by politicians and some media outlets, as well as NGOs. The Emergency Staff has to, in an uninterrupted mode, waste its resources to curb the waves of forged information along with the elimination of the consequences of the disaster. Moreover, another specific circumstance revealed that when denouncing the disinformation, the denouncers were immediately posed to assaults by various groups to silence them while steadfastly resuming the circulation of the forged data.

I would like to aggregate all nine false narratives and introduce them to our society that have been intensively saddling our citizens with and aiming to terror-strike the Georgian society and ignite the distrust of the authority.

1. Allegedly, the natural disaster has been predicted in 2021 by the National Environmental Agency. On the second day of the natural disaster, the Head of the NGO “Green Alternative” uploaded on his social network the extract from the bulletin of the National Environmental Agency to confirm that the risk of the natural disaster in Shovi has been predicted by the Agency. In fact, the extract itself reveals that the report was issued not about the River Bubistskali, which was the disaster area, but the River Dgviora, which flows in the village Glola one km. below the epicentre of the mudslide and has no connection with the avalanche. Naturally, this manipulation appeared sufficient for the unaware readers to strengthen the false narrative that the disaster has been predicted and the Government had undertaken nothing to prevent this tragedy. Despite that, the National Environmental Agency was rapid to repulse this information and I personally appealed to the “Green Alternative” to elucidate to society that the uploaded information had nothing in common with the disaster; however, NGO ignored my appeal maintaining the hereof information actively discussed for upcoming days.

2. Allegedly, the riverbed of the River Bubistskali has been altered in the last few years. On August 4, NGO “Mountain Stories” issued information on the alleged alteration of the riverbed of the River Bubistskali to serve as a reason for the disaster and that a new bed appeared insufficient to slide the quarry and the river outflowed from its bed. In fact, the river changed its bed back in 1960 and flows in a new channel with no other alterations. It was as well the elucidation by the Environmental Agency and it was the second case when we publicly addressed the NGO “Mountain Stories” to admit information as forged, though, no response followed and this false narrative was circulated for a couple of more days.
3. Allegedly, the permits issued for the construction of the cottages aggravated the consequences. The social network and other media outlets were active in sharing and discussing the satellite photo of the cottages destructed amid the natural disaster, implating the narrative that “permits have been issued on the construction of this so-called slaughterhouse” recently, while the reality is that these cottages were built in the 1960s in exactly the same form as they remained up to the disaster. This false information was naturally swiftly denounced, though the media kept maintaining it for a couple of days.
4. Allegedly the illegal wood felling served as an additional trigger for the disaster. TV channels and social media started sharing information based on various experts that the felling of the woods have caused the natural disaster and that the avalanche downflowed the logs and timber as evidence. In fact, the slid timber and logs are not confirmed and moreover, the felling, timbering, storing and removing the wood in the avalanche-risked territory is absolutely unfeasible and has zero connection with these processes.
5. Supposedly, the river level on the River Bubistskali was decreased for two days, which was a sign of the dammed water on the glacier. On August 4, NGO “Mountain Stories” issued information that the river Bubistksali was empty for two days with no flow or a low river level was detected, which was a sign that water was dammed at the river-head and that no one responded to this fact. The National Environmental Agency declared the same day about the flow level metering stations installed at the river Chanchakhi 4 km. below the disaster area (the affluence of which is the River Bubistskali), the readings of which confirm that no water level was decreased in the period before the disaster and hence, the damming was excluded. Despite these denunciations and our public addresses to the NGO “Mountain Stories” to admit the forgery, no response followed. Moreover, this information served for the reinforcement of the main false narrative about the reasons for the disaster that allegedly, the so-called glacier lake has been dammed for two days, which should be detectable and that time was enough for the response. This version, even when objected by other independent experts, was actively distributed by the Director of the Institute of Earth Sciences at Ilia University.
6. Helicopter issues. The false narrative on the helicopters is still circulating in the media. The Emergency Management Service has numerously elucidated and reiterated all the details related to helicopter use, which I would like to remind, namely:
   1. Two helicopters have been mobilized within a standard time and dispatched to the disaster zone in almost 3 hours;
   2. The helicopters had a capacity of 3 working hours in the disaster zone during a day and hence, the rescuers were provided with time enough to get on the helicopters and inspect and scrutinize the epicentre of the disaster in the Shovi resort, the length of which achieves 1000 m, and width – 270 m; the inspection would allow the rescuers to detect the persons amid the disaster and thus, the helicopters were used to inspect a whole territory of the resort. At that, simultaneously, the rescuers had the capacity to send the drones with the thermal sensors also in the night hours;
   3. The helicopters were padded on the field in front of the Sunset Shovi Hotel the very day of the disaster to evacuate all the visitors and the personnel of the Hotel (70 persons);
   4. At the same time, the rescuers searched and detected all persons that were not in the disaster zone but were cut from the outer world due to the ruined roads and destructed bridge. All these persons were evacuated by the rescuers to the camp beyond the risk zone, providing them with all the items necessary for the night, remained with them and evacuated together with other persons by helicopter to the city of Oni the next day (140 persons). Other than the helicopters, up to 100 machinery and devices have been mobilized within the shortest period to install the temporary bridge and arrange two new ways of 2 km. section. 400 rescuers, 200 military personnel and up to 100 police officers and rangers were engaged in the search operations. Our society was witness to the scales of the rescue operations.
7. A discrediting campaign has been launched against Kakha Kaladze. The campaign rolled up by the National Movement and their propagandists against Kakha Kaladze was the most sharply immoral, in which they were convinced that Kakha Kaladze saved his family members using the helicopter for their evacuation from the disaster zone abandoning others, or Kakha Kaladze was informed in advance about the natural disaster and took his family out of the epicenter asap. The campaign-mongers even went so far as to request the Hotel that was affected by the disaster to provide them with the surveillance footage as evidence they had obtained, and only after this fact, the National Movement propagandists started trumpeting the highly moralistic statuses about the inadmissibility of this false narrative but only after all their speculations were undermined by the obtained video footage.
8. Allegedly the authorities remain oblivious to the family members of the persons missing. On August 5, the NGO “Mountain Stories” uploaded a photo on their Facebook wall with the description that there is a man standing in the front line of a phone looking for his missing son, desperately trying to meet the authorities for sundry days but his appeals remain vain. The back line of the photo reveals the members of the authorities busy with consultations. A couple of minutes prior to the taking of this photo, I personally had a long conversation with this man and the author of the photo was well aware of this fact, though, chasing the idea to sell this scandal, he still issued this false information. Despite that I personally made a public response to the NGO “Mountain Stories” appealing to remove this falsification from their wall, no response followed, and moreover, this photo can be still found on their page. Besides, society was intensively flooded with information via the social network about the aid collection, including food, water, clothes and medicines regardless of the numerous explanations by the Emergency Staff about the intact intention of the state to provide all the persons on site with all items necessary and that no need of engaging volunteers existed. The aim of such actions, in certain cases, was to generate the perception that allegedly the Government fails to take sufficient care of the disaster-affected persons.
9. Circulation of false citations of the authorities via the social network. The false citations of the authority members, including Irakli Kobakhidze, Mamuka Mdinaradze, and Vakhtang Gomelauri uploaded and shared via the social network in an orchestrated manner was particularly demonstrative with the aim to set off hostile attitudes among the society. It is noteworthy that all these false citations were ignored by the so-called fact-checkers, including the “Fact-Check” or “Myth Detector”, and only after our denunciations, they stooped to denounce these citations on their website. It is noteworthy that the NGOs that proved to be prominent with their projects against the disinformation remained silent to this unprecedented disinformation storm; even contrary – these very NGOs that were supposed to denounce the disinformation, started to discredit the denouncers, accusing them of the assaults. The value crisis lingering as a challenge in the part of these NGOs was numerously mentioned by me since they serve not for the public interests but their corporate objectives. And Georgian society envisions this crisis on all its scales.

And at the end of my briefing, I would like to reiterate the words of gratitude to every rescuer, soldier, police officer, ranger, doctor, machinery maintainer, driver and volunteer engaged in the rescue operations for their professionalism, vigor, devotion and sacrifice that they, despite the flow of disinformation, manifest; the Georgian people appreciates and values your devotion.”