Heavy rains cause flash flood in Cayo

Over the last few years most of the talk about the Macal River has centred on how little water it carries and how five years of dry weather have turned the once mighty thoroughfare into a trickle. They won’t be saying that for a while, however, as during the last twenty-four hours torrential rains in the river’s watershed have caused a flash flood in the Macal River Valley and threaten to do similar damage well downstream along the Belize River. The water level peaked around midday in San Ignacio and by newstime should be on its way down. A number of homes and businesses were flooded out in the town and the situation was recorded by cameraman Kent Pandy of Cayo’s SEN TV.

Reports from the Mollejon Hydro plant indicate that the area received around five inches of rainfall overnight, but that the river started to drop around 7:30 in the morning. At its peak the level was still some two metres lower than the last major flood in 1995. Contrary to what has been reported elsewhere, the Mollejon has no dam or floodgates, which are opened or closed and the facility has no influence on any flooding conditions up or downstream. With all the rain, however, Mollejon has been operating at full capacity, with BECOL engineers reporting that the volume of water was actually a thousand times larger than that needed to run the plant at peak output. Meanwhile, the National Emergency Management Organisation has warned residents of low-lying areas downstream on the Belize River in Cayo to move to higher ground and people living further down the Belize River Valley should keep a sharp lookout and prepare to evacuate should reports indicate that conditions have worsened. In the Toledo District the rains have caused several rivers to rise and flood key bridges along the Southern Highway. Those rivers tend to rise and fall more quickly than the larger rivers to the north and west and conditions should quickly return to normal.