4,000 homes damaged, 11,000 thousand homeless
Relief efforts in the Stann Creek and Toledo districts continued to expand today as floodwaters recede on the Southern Highway and large amounts of supplies mobilised for distribution to stricken areas. Updated damage assessments by NEMO indicate that over four thousand houses were destroyed or significantly damaged with just under eleven thousand people left homeless. In addition to the twenty people who perished aboard the Wave Dancer, NEMO reports that two Canadians remain missing from Monkey River, while six Belizeans remain unaccounted for after their house was washed into the Trio River. Over the three day weekend Prime Minister Said Musa and Ministers Fonseca and Bradley will host the Ambassadors of the U.S.A., Mexico, Great Britain and Taiwan on a tour of the disaster area.
And what those gentlemen will see will not be pretty. News 5 viewers are already familiar with the destruction on the Placencia Peninsula and tonight we are fortunate to bring you some clips of the situation further inland. Roxanna Cal of Indian Creek Village used her home video camera to document the situation in Indian Creek and surrounding villages along the Southern Highway. What follows is a glimpse–through her eyes–of life after Hurricane Iris.
Roxanna Cal
“Everybody here is homeless and they’re trying to find help.”
Citizen #1
“This is the food distribution corner. We receive all contributions here and we’re also sharing out food here. The way we are distributing the food is that we’re giving two pounds of rice, two pounds of flour to every family. The ones that are staying here…the women get together and they’re cooking all the food together, so we would give them in bulk. The problem here is reaching out to those families who are not here and have no access to come out from their corner. We have some families who are very isolated and we’re trying to reach out to those families and yes, it is working for right now. the entire community of Big Falls and Hicatee and the leaders especially are working together and doing a very, very good job so far.”
Citizen #2
“This is the way of life we have here for right now. This is our stove, we have no other way to get our food cook, except this way. This is the kitchen, this is the comal and this is the pot.”
Roxanna Cal
“And that’s the only source that the entire village is using for cooking?”
Citizen #2
“Yes, for today and this period of time.”
Citizen #3
“This rice mill pump in Big Falls, now is in need of repairing. That will affect in the future the conditions of crops. This is the heart of Toledo where they concentrate all the rice.”
Citizen #4
“This is the community, Hicatee that we were just talking about a while ago. This is the damage that we see from the hurricane. The damage to our corn mill that we just started. This is the fifteenth corn mill project that was provided by the Government and this is where we need a lot of assistance, in the building and also the damage from the machine and the mill itself.”
Roxanna Cal
“This is the people from Indian Creek Village. They are trying to make plans. This is the community centre partially destroyed by the hurricane. As you can see, everybody is in need right now. everybody needs help, everybody needs support. They don’t have no homes, but they have hopes to build and continue. That’s an iguana trying to find a new home. Everybody is suffering from this disaster.”
We’d like to thank Roxanna Cal for taking the initiative in getting us this tape. We hope to provide more coverage from the Toledo District next week.
