A village on the northern Gaza Strip was submerged in sewage water as a a sewage treatment pool collapsed, claiming five lives and hurting 25 villagers. Among the dead were two toddlers and a 70-year-old woman.
The village of Umm al-Naser in northern Gaza, which has a population of around 3000, was taken by surprise as the earth wall of a sewage treatment pool gave way. The villagers nicknanmed this flood as the ’sewage tsunami’, which buried atleast 25 houses in raw sewage.
Hani al-Qawasmeh, the Interior Minister, rushed to the scene but only to be sent back by an angry mob of villagers.
Rescue work was in full force to find those suspected of being buried in the sewage. Israeli army was also willing to help in the rescue work, but it is not yet clear whether the Palestinian officials have accepted the offer or not.
The water authority is trying to put the blame on foreign aids, which stopped following a Hamas victory in the recent elections, which is seconded by Hamas. Fadel Kawash, head of the Palestinian Water Authority, told AP:
We had a project to treat sewage in north Gaza, it was worked on for two years. We built a pressure pipeline and pumping station but it was stopped after... troubles began.
But the UN has a different story to tell. Stuart Shepherd, the UN’s humanitarian aid officer in Gaza, says that the collapsed plant had been warned by the UN in 2004, to be serving at its maximum capacity, and flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was constructed.
As far as the fund was concerned, added Shephard, foreign investment had been secured to build the treatment plant, but security risks in the area hindered the construction. According to the UN, the facility, built in the 1970s to serve a population of 50,000, was serving 190,000 people by 2004.
Yusuf Abdel Safir, head of Gaza’s environmental authority, told BBC that an estimated pool of four million cubic metres of water had built up and a small lagoon was built by the PWA to deal with rising pressure in the main pool. He said:
This new lagoon has been constructed just three months ago to release this pressure. This lagoon has collapsed today because of the pressure.
