Although butane gas companies agreed last year to stop using tanker trucks on house to house visits in developed areas, the practice continues, and on Wednesday two men and two children in Succotz paid the price for the supposed convenience. BWEL employees Rafael Novelo and Alfredo Guardado were filling a fifty-pound cylinder when the bottom […]
Five children were injured after a gas tank exploded in Succotz Village around twelve thirty this afternoon. According to reports, a gas truck had gone to the residence of Belarmino Itza to fill a tank. Around that time the children were coming home from school and as they entered the yard the tank exploded. At […]
If you tried to get over the Swing Bridge today via Hyde’s Lane or New Road you might have been frustrated by a roadblock. But there was reason behind the chaos. The Fire Department deliberately chose one of the most trafficked areas of town on the most congested afternoon to test themselves, and allied agencies […]
In the early morning hours of Monday, Belizeans joined a shocked world as news reports trickled in that a massive earthquake had rocked Taiwan’s capital Taipei. The magnitude was seven point six on the Richter scale with the epicenter ninety miles south southwest of Taipei. Today rescuers continue to sift through the debris in search […]
A fire in Unitedville almost claimed the lives of two children locked inside their home. Police report that around nine thirty p.m. on Saturday September eighteenth, thirty year old Raquel Locke left her home and locked her one-year-old and four-year-old sons inside. Later that night, neighbors saw the house on fire and broke in to […]
Taiwanese living in Belize are anxiously watching their televisions and using the Internet to get information on a massive earthquake that struck Taipei, Taiwan today leveling a twelve story hotel and a row of houses in a nearby suburb. Initial reports from Taiwanese media confirm at least thirty-eight dead with possibly a hundred or more […]
Over the past several months, a flood mapping exercise was carried out as part of a Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project. The assessment, which attempts to simulate how the Belize River runs and its impact on the communities from San Ignacio to Roaring Creek during floods, was presented to the villages’ chairpersons, representatives of water resource […]
One of Belize City’s hurricane shelters has been completely renovated through funds from the Social Investment Fund. The Salvation Army School on Orange Street took in three hundred people during Mitch and it became apparent that the facility needed urgent repairs to the roof, termite-ridden floor and restrooms. This week the school’s two hundred students […]
A boat caught fire early Sunday morning in the Newtown Barracks. Therese Ayuso told police that she was awakened shortly after midnight by shouts from neighbors. She discovered smoke coming from the garage and her twenty-foot fiberglass boat was in flames. The Fire Department responded and extinguished the fire. The boat is valued at twenty […]
In this the hurricane season, the Belize Red Cross and the United Nations Development Program, UNDP, continue their series of disaster preparedness workshops for villages. This time the workshops are in the Stann Creek District. Today forty-five village leaders from Silk Grass, Sittee, Hopkins and Maya Center met at the Silk Grass Community Center and […]
A two-year-old boy drowned in Punta Gorda over the weekend after falling into a pit latrine. Nelia Pop told police around five p.m. on Saturday, August twenty-eighth she was inside the house when she heard splashing outside. She went into the latrine ten feet from the house and saw her small son, Felipe Shol struggling […]
Another fire in the North Front Street area, this time on Sunday August twenty-ninth, has destroyed the upper floor of one family’s home. According to Nurse Gaynel Collins she was at home around ten a.m. that morning when she heard a sound like breaking glass coming from upstairs. When she investigated, she found the house […]
With everyone on the lookout for hurricanes and tropical storms, it’s an appropriate time for the Red Cross and U.N.D.P. to continue their disaster preparedness workshops in the rural areas. On Saturday August twenty-eighth village leaders of southern Stann Creek District will attend a one-day session in Independence. So far five hundred village leaders in […]
Fire broke out Thursday evening just before seven p.m. on North Front Street in Belize City, and as usual hundreds turned out to witness the spectacle and generally get in the way. But what was a night’s entertainment for some left four families homeless. News Five was at the scene. The sky was covered with […]
No sooner had the National Fire Service finished their work on the city’s northside, then they were off to the southside to battle the flames of another fire. This time the fire which started shortly after two this morning, totally destroyed the home of forty-six year old Myrtle McKenzie at the corner of Mahogany Street […]
It’s all too common to see little children walking alone through the streets of Belize City. Sometimes they are sent to the shop to buy. Sometimes they are just out playing in the street or wandering around in search of something to do, someone to play with. This weekend one little boy who was sent […]
The British Army Training Support Unit, or BATSUB, has finally confirmed that a British soldier drowned in the Macal River last Wednesday. BATSUB says 27 year old Darren Gibson, a fusilier drowned near the Guacamallo Bridge and an exhaustive search led to the discovery of the body on Friday. The British Military police are investigating […]
There has been no official confirmation but reports reaching News Five indicate that a British soldier has died in the Mountain Pine Ridge. The soldier is believed to have been part of a contingent of army personnel undergoing jungle training by BATSUB. He allegedly drowned in the Macal River near the Guacamallo Bridge within the […]
Most people are at home when a fire starts or hear about it shortly afterwards but this was not the case for a fire on one of the remote islands of Glover’s Reef. Twenty-two year old Christopher Kuylen was more than surprised when his insurance company, G.A. Roe and Sons, called him around nine o’clock […]
Police have released details on the death of a tourist on Wednesday morning in the vicinity of Lighthouse Reef. 69 year old Edwina Hammond of Cincinnati, Ohio was finishing a dive in the great Blue Hole off the live abroad dive boat Wave Dancer when the captain, Clifton Block, noticed she was having problems. Hammond […]
Since Monday, Belize City and the Northern Districts have been experiencing heavy downpours from a flare up of thunderstorms all along the coast of Belize up to Chetumal. The constant rains have caused flooding in a number of villages in the north. The knee high water flooded homes in the low lying areas of the […]
Late this evening, News Five was informed that a tourist drowned while on a dive trip to the Blue Hole at Turneffe. While at this time information is sketchy, we understand the victim was an elderly woman aboard the Wave Dancer, a live aboard dive boat. The body was brought back to Belize City and […]
No one likes to be reminded about the panic last October when Belize City residents headed inland, or crowded city shelters to avoid Hurricane Mitch. But the experience taught us a great deal about disaster preparedness, or rather our lack of preparedness. To see where we are today and what needs to be done, a […]
They are the first people we call at the first sign of smoke and the first people we blame when the houses burn down. But does Belize’s Fire Department deserves all the criticism from the public and is their constant pleas for more manpower and better equipment just excuses? Some American firefighters on a training […]
What were you doing during the earthquake? That’s the question everyone has been asking their friends and family since Sunday morning when Belize felt the effects of an earthquake centered near San Pedro Sula, Honduras. According to the Meteorological and Geology Departments the quake which registered 6.6 on the Richter Scale was felt strongest in […]
