A SECTION of the main access road which links Aishalton with the border town of Lethem, has been washed away due to persistent rainfall, cutting off all vehicular traffic to the key ‘Deep-South’ Rupununi village.

Toshao of Aishalton, Michael Thomas, told the Guyana Chronicle on Monday that the rains have been pouring in the area over the past several weeks, rendering parts of it flooded. He said the flooding was initially severe, as much as to cause some degree of damage to the road, but things worsened last week.

Thomas said it got so bad that a culvert buckled under pressure of the water, and the road was consequently washed away. The area is still inundated, the village leader said, and the situation with the road has been compounded by the weight of trucks which pass through Aishalton on their way to the mining areas in the ‘Deep-South’.

“This morning,” he said, “I went on site12 miles away from the village. It has caused a lot of hiccups in terms of traffic coming into the village.” He said that fuel and foodstuff are among the goods currently in demand in the area, and that an official from the Regiona Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) Regional Democratic Council (RDC) was in the area last week to look at projects, and would have been aware of the situation.

“It is still raining,” Thomas said, adding: “It is not even the peak of the rainy season yet, and there are three more months of rains. So, we can only imagine what may happen.” He said that while there are hundreds of culverts along the roadway between Aishalton and Lethem, the area that has been washed away lies along a long stretch which is surrounded by swamp water.

But, there is yet some glimmer of hope, as there is an alternative route which some villagers have been using to get to and from Aishalton, and that roadway connects the village with Awaranauwau. The one problem, however, Thomas said, is that going that route entails some 40 miles of travel, which means that an additional four to five hours to what usually obtains along the original route.

Thomas also reported that the Toshao of Awaranauwau has complained that the road through the village is slowly being eroded, because of the many trucks that have been using the alternative route to get into Aishalton. And while the situation is nothing new to the villagers of both Aishalton and Awaranauwau, since the annual rainfall usually brings flooding, Thomas said that this year, fixing the area that has been washed away is more than the village council can handle. “It requires heavy equipment,” he said.

Heavy and persistent rainfall has been the cause of flooding in many hinterland areas in recent weeks. Recently, flash floods in the township of Mahdia forced residents living in low-lying areas to relocate as many counted their losses. The town council is working to relocate as many as 14 families to higher ground. Last week, the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) had stated that it was monitoring the situation at both Mahdia and Aishalton.