Gov’t rushes to aid hard-hit communities
GOVERNMENT has mobilized a number of ministries and agencies to provide urgent relief and assistance to residents in riverain communities in Region Ten (Upper Demerara/Berbice) who are currently hard-hit by flooding due to heavy rainfall over the past seven days. Spring tides and unusually torrential rains have swollen the Upper Demerara River , causing it to overflow its banks in areas at Linden, Great Falls, Malali and Muritaro.
Farms have been destroyed, roads have been made impassable, and entire communities are surrounded by water as much as four feet high, official sources said yesterday. More than 200 families are suffering from the effects of the flooding.
Minister of Transport and Hydraulics, Mr. Robeson Benn, and Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Mr. Kellawan Lall confirmed the dire situation of communities along the banks of the upper reaches of the Demerara  River during a media conference late yesterday.
They did so shortly after returning from a reconnaissance, by helicopter, of the stricken communities, and said that the  situation has sparked a humanitarian response from the government, with the mobilization of the Civil Defence Commission (CDC), the Ministries of Agriculture, Health, Amerindian Affairs, Local Government and the Region Ten Administration.
Minister Lall said the flood seemed not to be confined just to the Upper Demerara but throughout other riverain areas.
“What we saw during our flyover,” he said, “was a blanket of water; one continuous sheet of water in the upper reaches of the major rivers.”
As a result of what they’d seen, he said, the government is  bracing for the impact of these flood waters on other riverain communities, and gearing to provide relief and assistance to residents in these areas when  the need arises.
Minister Benn said the need for food supplies and potable water in communities along the banks of the Upper Demerara River has been confirmed, and that as of yesterday, essential supplies were being dispatched to the areas in question, with further distribution being undertaken by the CDC during the rest of this week.
The CDC will be setting up a staging area in Linden, with the aid of the LINMINE Secretariat and the Region Ten Administration.
According to Minister Lall, the government yesterday began distributing such essential medical supplies as water purifiers among residents in the flood-hit communities, and that his ministry is overseeing the putting together of food hampers for distribution to the affected families beginning today.
Minister Benn attributed the flooding in many riverain areas to  a combination of unusually high spring tides from the Atlantic, and  extreme quantities of water coming down from the creeks and other tributaries of the Demerara River due to the high-intensity rainfall.
The heavy rains have generally been blamed on the presence over Guyana of an Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) over the past two weeks. “We are going through an extreme weather event,” he said, adding that the rains are expected to continue, though hopefully with lesser intensity over the next two weeks.
In the meantime, road construction crews will be on standby to carry out the necessary repairs as soon as the weather condition permits.