Several villages in Linden under water after pond collapses
Several villages including Three Friends Mines/Maria Elizabeth were under water on Friday after a tail-end pond at East Montgomery Mines in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) reportedly collapsed.
As a result, hundreds of residents are affected. At approximately 19:30h on Thursday evening, a resident of the Three Friends Mines area recalled, she heard a sound similar to that of rainfall, however upon investigating, she realised that it was a heavy flow of water in yard.
She explained that by the time she realised what was happening, it was too late.
“The water was gushing from the back, wash away everything. We just suggest it was something that break away, because for all the years we living here in the community we never see this kind of thing happen. We know about flood. We get flood but we never see this water gushing down like that…”, she explained.
She pointed out that the flow of water resulted in total destruction to homes thus leaving household items and the entire community water soaked.
She noted that the bauxite company, Bosai Minerals Group Guyana Incorporated has a reservoir which it uses to store water and suggested that this may have broken. The resident said, however, that this was refuted by a company representative who visited and met with residents of the community on Friday.
“It ends up breaking the dyke…It cut Maria Elizabeth away from Three Friends Mines… We residents living here for years and that never happened in this community, never,” one resident reiterated.
The water gushing from the backlands
Meanwhile, Regional Executive Officer (REO) Dwight John, engineers from Georgetown, and other officials visited the community on Friday to assess the damage and to ascertain the source of the problem.
Meanwhile, by Friday evening, residents reported that the water had started to recede. A resident indicated that an excavator is expected to be put into operation in the community today.
A team is expected to visit the area today to distribute hampers and other supplies to the affected residents.
