Sewage floods village, kills four in Gaza |
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Published
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Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:05
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UMM AL NASR, Gaza Strip (AFX) - At least four Palestinians drowned as a wave of raw sewage flooded a village in the northern Gaza Strip today when a water treatment reservoir burst.The deluge, triggered by the collapse of a septic system which aid organisations had long warned was dangerously overburdened, submerged dozens of homes in the Bedouin farming village of Umm al-Nasr beneath a cesspool of foul-smelling effluent.Two women, one more than 70 years old, and two children aged one and two died in the flood. Fifteen people were injured and scores more are still missing, according to Palestinian medics.Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters as rescuers used boats to help the victims.'The situation is very bad,' village mayor Ziad Abu Thabet said, comparing the disaster to a 'tsunami.''Around 70 percent of the village houses were flooded by the waters,' he said.Palestinian television and radio opened their news broadcasts by also describing the disaster as a 'sewage tsunami.'Newly appointed Palestinian interior minister Hani al-Qawasmeh rushed to the scene to inspect the damage, but angry villagers chased him off by firing guns at his convoy and wounding two policemen, witnesses said.As far back as January 2004, UN aid agencies in the Gaza Strip had warned that the north Gaza sewage treatment facility was operating far beyond its capacity and posed a grave danger to nearby residents.Designed to serve just 50,000 people, the plant at that time was handling waste from 190,000 Gaza residents.Excess sewage had already flooded around 110 acres, and 50 pct of children in Umm Al-Nasr had developed problems with their digestive systems, a UN report found.'Unless action is taken to address this problem, water in this effluent lake will spill out over the holding basins into residential areas, and directly into homes,' the report concluded.In Israel, Defence Minister Amir Peretz ordered the army to provide assistance to the victims if asked to do so by the Palestinian Authority.The Islamist Hamas movement, the leading partner in a newly formed Palestinian unity government, blamed the disaster on the suspension of direct foreign aid to the cabinet that was imposed a year ago when it formed a cabinet alone.'Hamas thinks that the overflowing of the basin is one of the results of the suspension of international aid to our people, which is preventing the government from improving and developing infrastructure,' it said in a statement.newsdesk@afxnews.comafp/cmrCOPYRIGHTCopyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News.AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited
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