Five Palestinians Dead in Gaza 'sewage tsunami'

[shance]

Five dead in Gaza 'sewage tsunami'
A rescue worker searches for bodies in raw sewage


At least five Palestinians including two toddlers drowned in a “sewage tsunami” today, when a water treatment reservoir burst its embankment, flooding a village in the northern Gaza Strip.

The deluge, triggered by the collapse of a system aid organisations had long warned was dangerously overburdened, submerged dozens of homes in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Nasr beneath a cesspool of foul-smelling effluent.

Two women in their 70s, a teenage girl and two boys aged one and two died in the flood. At least 15 people were injured and local medics say scores more are still missing.

Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters and rescuers paddled through the village in makeshift boats in search of victims. Frantic goats and cows, staple food for the Bedouin shepherds, were also pulled to safety.

Tawfir al-Bansh, a resident said: “We woke up at 10 this morning with sewage water pouring into our homes and covering everything.”

(snip)

As far back as January 2004, UN aid agencies in the Gaza Strip had warned that the 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 was then handling waste from 190,000 Gaza residents.

A UN report found that excess sewage had already flooded around 110 acres, and 50 percent of children in Umm Al-Nasr had developed problems with their digestive systems, a UN report found.

The report concluded: “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.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1576633.ece