Placencia begins recovery from earthquake…

The massive seven point one earthquake which shook the country early Thursday morning left damaged streets, homes and businesses, and wrecked water reservoirs in Placencia, Independence and Monkey River. Classes had to be called off in two of the southern villages because of the lack of running water. One day after the country felt the shockwaves, Placencia Village Chairman, Brian Yearwood, says life on the peninsula is almost back to normal.

Brian Yearwood, Chairman, Placencia Village Council (Via Phone)
“The village does have water—not all of the village, maybe about seventy-five percent of it and as we go along, we’re actually finding more and more of the leaks on the ground. They found a major one yesterday, which was between the point, Placencia Point and Placencia Caye. There’s an underground six inch water line there that goes to the caye. This is maybe like a hundred meters. This was located and we found that to be cracked and leaky and that took away a lot of pressure so that’s been shut off and repaired as well as eight other leaks, smaller leaks; two and three inch light leaks. So the pressure is slowly coming up as more leaks are found.”

Jose Sanchez
“Has an engineered checked out the water tower to see if it needs to be repaired or replaced?”

Brian Yearwood
“Yes, yes. The government officials have come down all of yesterday, official departments as well as Thurton and Associates. We’re meeting with them as we speak now and they have inspected the water towers and they feel like it can be repaired and supported but it has to be done immediately so for support for the repairs.”

Yearwood says the water pressure should be up this evening.