San Vicente Rural Water System Contaminated by Resident

Six residents of San Vicente Village in Toledo are hospitalized and are being monitored in Punta Gorda after they began exhibiting symptoms of being poisoned. Today, C.E.O. in the Ministry of Rural Transformation, Community Development, Labour and Local Government confirmed that the water system in the village had been deliberately contaminated by a resident. It is not known at this time what triggered this action, but it is a frightening situation because lives could have been lost by those who ingested the contaminated water. Fortunately, the ministry responded quickly to flush out both reservoirs and distribution lines. This morning, News Five spoke with C.E.O. Valentino Shal about the incident, which endangered the lives of the entire village.

Valentino Shal, C.E.O., Ministry of Rural Transformation, Community Development, Labour, and Local Government

“Yesterday morning we received reports from village leaders of San Vicente to our ministry that they believe that their water system was deliberately contaminated with some chemical agents and so we responded and went to the village to find out what was taking place. Based on what was found, the public health inspector was called from P.G. to come and inspect the system and base on the advice given, the system was flushed out, the reservoirs were cleaned and the lines also flushed out. That was the first step we did.”

Valentino Shal

Duane Moody

“Who could want to do something like this? It would affect the entire village. Who would want to do this?”

Valentino Shal

“Yes, it endangers the lives of the entire village and we have no knowledge of the motive of the person or persons who may be responsible for this. Why they would do such a thing? It is absolutely heinous. We have had some villagers who have shown associated symptoms of ingesting something. And we have helped them as well to get to the hospital in PG and the doctors there are monitoring them and so far, they seem to be stable. But this is very rare in these villages, especially in Toledo where people are always working to together and supporting each other, so this is an extremely rare, but disturbing event that occurred yesterday.”