Described as the “worst flooding ever seen”, hundreds of families in regions 1, 2, 7 and 8 have been affected by inundation triggered by rain and high tides.
Some of the hard-hit communities have seen water levels reach as high as four feet, in particular Batavia, Region Seven.
Region One (Barima-Waini) Chairman, Brentnol Ashley said some twenty-three communities across the three sub-regions: Mabaruma, Port Kaituma and Moruca have been hit by floods. From the twenty-three, seventeen are within Mabaruma, while households in two communities in Moruca and three in Port Kaituma have been affected. He estimated that three hundred families have been affected overall in Region One.
“We have four in the Matarkai sub region which is Baramita. We’ve had some flash floods following intense rain at Matthews Ridge including a place called ‘The Flats’ and a section of the road leading into Matthews Ridge”, Ashley said. Flooding in these areas has since subsided, he added.
Additionally, a road in Arakaka is also under water owing to the overtopping of a nearby creek. The farms and the community of Fourteen Miles, Arakaka are under water also. Among the number of low lying areas in Mabaruma are St. Anselm, Unity Square, Black Water, Red Hill, Imbotero, and Three Brothers. Meanwhile for Central Mabaruma, according to Ashley, the Hosororo Stretch and the Wauna Stretch have been affected.
The regional chairman said that all of the communities in these areas have already been visited by officials from the regional democratic council (RDC), the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA), and the joint services and these will continue.
“We have never seen a flood of this magnitude as yet in these communities and I think it’s as a result of the spring tide and the intense rainfall. Flooding in these areas started in the wee hours of the morning of the 26th of May (last Wednesday) to present”, Ashley said.
In areas where the water has stagnated, particularly central Mabaruma, drainage pumps have been mobilised to pump the water off of the roads into the nearby creeks. The chairman noted too that the clogged drains running along the Hosororo Stretch and Wauna Stretch are currently been cleared of silt. Presently, there are more than thirty persons cleaning three outfalls leading to the Koriabo River.
Ashley said the teams are also on a daily basis assessing persons in immediate need of shelter, food and emergency medical attention.
Regional Executive Officer (REO) of Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam), Devanand Ramdatt and a number of other officials yesterday and on Saturday visited communities along the Pomeroon River where they distributed one thousand hampers to residents. There are approximately twelve hundred households along the river.
Ramdatt said that everyone living along the Pomeroon has been affected by flood waters. Just about all of the residents in this area depend on farming for their livelihood, the REO explained, adding that their farms are all under water.
Never seen anything like this before
“We’ve never seen anything like this before. The rate at which the entire Pomeroon was flooded, is something that even the elderly people of Pomeroon are also saying that they’ve never seen anything like this before. Apart from the Pomeroon, two Amerindian communities, Kabakaburi and St. Monica… also received hampers. We’re in the process of securing more hampers”, Ramdatt said.
Owing to how much of these areas have been devastated by floods, Region Two’s REO said that it is difficult to assess how much damage has been done. Reflecting on the 2005 Great Flood, the biggest to hit the country, Ramdatt said that that flood is nothing compared to the recent flooding.
He added that he is happy for the help from members of the community who are assisting officials in helping affected persons.
Ramdatt said that floodwaters are not receding in these areas. Some of these farms are said to be under three feet of water. He is to be a part of a meeting today with the Chamber of Commerce as well as representatives from NAREI, the GLDA, National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), the Guyana Rice Development Board, the regional education officer (REdO) and the regional health officer (RHO).
Meanwhile, along the Essequibo Coast, Ramdatt noted that there is overtopping of drains but no significant flooding. However, he added that flooding has been reported in the Charity Squatting Area. This area is near the Pomeroon River and does not have proper drainage.
Bartica
For Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni), one of the more severely affected areas is Bartica with a number of avenues in the town under water. Region Seven’s chairman, Kenneth Williams said other affected areas include Itaballi where some twenty families have been affected by flooding. An additional ten households in Batavia have also suffered flooding. According to Williams, Batavia has more than three hundred households but where the ten families are is said to low lying. By yesterday evening when he spoke with this newspaper, he noted that the floodwaters had receded in these areas.
“Persons are attesting that it is the worst flood in history. This is a combination of several factors – spring tide, heavy rainfalls and climate change”, Williams said.
He added that today, the RDC will be collaborating with the Civil Defence Commission and will be returning to these communities to provide them with sanitizing agents.
Meanwhile, in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), despite its mountainous terrain, villages situated in the valleys of the Pakaraima Mountains have been affected by floodwater. “The problems are really the rivers overtopping the banks. The villages along the (river) in the Pakaraimas, we got reports of flooding in those areas. Because of previous experiences with flooding, most of the houses were constructed on high grounds but their farm lands are what are affected. We depend on radio communication and there are no reports of damage being done to homes in that area. As the weather is, no aircrafts will be flying”, REO of Region Eight Peter Ramotar said.
Ramotar who is currently in Mahdia said he recently traveled from the Pakaraimas and was there within the last two weeks. He noted that the villages along the river there have a population of more than three thousand persons, most of whom depend on farming, all of whom would have been directly or indirectly affected by flooding.
There are plans in place, he said, to visit with families in these areas to assess how much damage has been done to their farms.
