Sascha Wil­son

As she stood in her flood-rav­aged home in rub­ber boats and gloves, Ro­hine Gay­har was in tears yes­ter­day.

Re­call­ing how she, her hus­band and daugh­ter were forced to sleep overnight in ham­mocks in their porch af­ter floods in­vad­ed her home at Pe­nal Quinam Road on Wednes­day, a tear­ful Gay­har said, “It not easy to go through this.”

She was one of hun­dreds of res­i­dents who were af­fect­ed by floods caused by heavy rains. Up to mid­day yes­ter­day, some ar­eas with­in the Pe­nal/Debe and Siparia con­stituen­cies re­mained un­der wa­ter. Sev­er­al res­i­dents who spoke with Guardian Me­dia said it the worst flood­ing they had ex­pe­ri­enced since the ma­jor flood­ing in 2019.

Wip­ing away her tears, Gay­nar said, “We did not get to sleep on the bed, we didn’t get to sleep in­side, we sleep out­side me, my daugh­ter and hus­band we sleep in the ham­mock whole night.”

The wa­ter did not re­cede late Wednes­day night.

Her hus­band Richard Sama­roo, 54, went to work while she and daugh­ter Rup­dive Bood­hoo, 25, cleaned the apart­ment. Al­though neigh­bours helped them to put their ap­pli­ances on a height, pieces of fur­ni­ture still got wa­ter soaked.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Balka­ran Sam­lal, 78, said he was up since 5 am clean­ing but the area had no pipe-borne wa­ter.

“If we get wa­ter that would be great,” he said.

Sam­lal said his daugh­ter, who re­sides abroad, missed her flight be­cause they could not leave their home to take her to the air­port on Wednes­day.

Mean­while, un­able to go to school, Jesse Per­sad, 16, was help­ing his par­ents clean up at their Mulchan Trace, Fyz­abad home. Per­sad’s moth­er, Mar­lene, said it was the first time they had ex­pe­ri­enced that lev­el of flood­ing.

“A lot of things we throw away this morn­ing, like clothes, fur­ni­ture, wardrobe, every­thing soak up.”

In the same area, Meera Balka­rans­ingh, who lives abroad but is vis­it­ing her fam­i­ly, said there was more than six feet of wa­ter un­der the house.

“We had to rush my mom, who is an am­putee, we had to take her to high­er lev­el, we had to take all our stuff up­stairs, we had to get the cars out of here, her wheel­chair every­thing, the ap­pli­ances fridge, stove, dry­er, every­thing got dam­aged,” she said.

Her fa­ther Siew­dath Mulchan, 90, said the fault lies with the coun­cil­lors and mem­bers of par­lia­ment.

“They al­low peo­ple to build up their lands with­out leav­ing or re­serv­ing the wa­ter space,” he com­plained.

Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Den­ish Sankars­ingh said they re­ceived more than 100 re­ports of res­i­den­tial flood­ing in ar­eas at Pa­lo Seco, Erin, Fyz­abad, Otahi­ete and Rousil­lac.

He said there were al­so re­ports of drowned live­stock and de­stroyed crops. De­spite be­ing un­der­fund­ed and un­der-re­sourced, he said the cor­po­ra­tion per­son­nel was on the ground try­ing to as­sist where they could, as in some ar­eas they were still wait­ing for floods to sub­side.

“So, there is even a big­ger prob­lem cre­at­ed, an eco­nom­ic hard­ship. Two months away from Christ­mas, crops be­ing de­stroyed, live­stock be­ing lost, earn­ing ca­pac­i­ty has been re­duced con­sid­er­ably,” Sankars­ingh said.

“At the cor­po­ra­tion, we are try­ing to as­sist as much as pos­si­ble and we are call­ing up­on and ap­peal­ing to the Gov­ern­ment to reach out and as­sist as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble giv­en their lim­it­ed fi­nan­cial re­sources and giv­en that it is a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter that could not be helped or avert­ed. A lot of as­sis­tance we pro­vide will be de­pen­dent on the Gov­ern­ment and Gov­ern­ment must be will­ing to come for­ward and of­fer that as­sis­tance.”

Sankars­ingh added, how­ev­er, that they al­so had a pub­lic health con­cern, as cesspit tanks would have over­flowed.