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Friday, July 18, 2025

South flooding impacts 150 homes

by

2045 days ago
20191213
This man attempts to escape flood water to his neighbor’s home at Debe Trace, Debe, yesterday.

This man attempts to escape flood water to his neighbor’s home at Debe Trace, Debe, yesterday.

INNIS FRANCIS

SASCHA WIL­SON

With more than a 150 res­i­dents af­fect­ed by floods in the Siparia, Fyz­abad and San Fran­cique area, mem­bers of the pub­lic and the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty are be­ing asked to ren­der aid to these fam­i­lies.

Some ar­eas in­clud­ing Ack­bar Trace and St John Trace in Fyz­abad were still un­der wa­ter yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

Fyz­abad Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe be­lieves the floods caused by heavy and con­sis­tent rain­fall on Wednes­day could be worst than last year’s floods. Con­firm­ing that parts of his con­stituen­cy were still un­der wa­ter, he said at least 100 house­holds were af­fect­ed and the wa­ter was still ris­ing.

The sit­u­a­tion was com­pound­ed by the mal­func­tion­ing flood gates at St John Trace.

He said he spoke with Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein who in­di­cat­ed that he will be look­ing in­to pro­vid­ing wa­ter pumps in the ar­eas as a tem­po­rary mea­sure.

Bo­doe said coun­cil­lors of the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion were out on the ground pro­vid­ing meals, sand­bags, wa­ter and oth­er re­lief to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents. Due to the in­ten­si­ty of the flood­ing at this time around, he said they have des­ig­nat­ed shel­ters, one of which is the Av­o­cat Vedic School.

With flood wa­ters reach­ing as high as five feet in some ar­eas, he said on­ly high ve­hi­cles could tra­verse those ar­eas.

“Vol­un­teers came on board, but any as­sis­tance will be wel­comed. We an­tic­i­pate that we will need meals for the next two to three days since some res­i­dents' kitchens were un­der wa­ter. They will al­so need clean­ing ma­te­ri­als.”

While the wa­ter has re­ced­ed in some ar­eas in San Fran­cique, Pe­nal and Rousil­lac, out­go­ing chair­man Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh said it has left a lot of de­struc­tion, may­hem and pain. Hard­est hit ar­eas were in low line ar­eas in Siparia, San Fran­cique, San­ta Flo­ra, Cha­toor Av­enue, Fyz­abad, Agapi­to Trace, Pa­lo Seco, San­ta Flo­ra, and Syne Vil­lage.

Es­ti­mat­ing that about 150 house­holds were af­fect­ed, Ra­mad­hars­ingh said about 50 fam­i­lies lost every­thing in their homes.

He said the Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit was out on the field do­ing as­sess­ments and as­sist­ing in what­ev­er way they could.

He said the Cor­po­ra­tion has been try­ing to do its best with lit­tle re­sources and has al­so linked up with oth­er agen­cies and busi­ness­es to pro­vide as­sis­tance to the af­fect­ed res­i­dents. “We are call­ing on cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ty to come for­ward and as­sist. Show mer­cy and com­pas­sion, es­pe­cial­ly in this Christ­mas sea­son,” he said.

Busi­ness­man Mark Cha­toor, a res­i­dent of Cha­toor Av­enue, Fyz­abad, said this was the worst flood­ing he has ex­pe­ri­enced in his 27 years liv­ing in that area. Cha­toor said his wife who is due to give birth any day now was trapped in the house from about 11 am to about 10 or 11 pm on Wednes­day. “Thank God we did not have an emer­gency be­cause we could not leave the house be­cause the flood wa­ter was so high. We did not want to take a chance in case she slip and fall (in the wa­ter) or get hit by de­bris.”

Cha­toor who op­er­ates four busi­ness­es from his home al­so lost three re­frig­er­a­tors while the fur­ni­ture in his tent and chair rental com­pa­ny was soaked.

Two of his ve­hi­cles, a three tonne truck and an H100 truck, were al­so un­der wa­ter.

Cha­toor said the one foot high flood bar­ri­er they con­struct­ed at their front door did not help. “It was re­al­ly dev­as­tat­ing I have nev­er seen any­thing like that in this area.” He thanked his coun­cil­lor Deryck Bowrin for pro­vid­ing res­i­dents with wa­ter, meals and clean­ing prod­ucts . He at­trib­uted the flood­ing to clogged wa­ter­ways and the mal­func­tion­ing flood gates at St John Trace.


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