All regions across the country have been affected by flooding from heavy and intense rainfall over the past two weeks. In fact, the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) has reported that over 25,000 households from across 300 communities have been affected since May 18, 2021.
Some of the hardest hit villages in Region Seven are Kamarang, Kako, Quebanang and Jawalla. Other affected villages are Karrau, Itaballi and Batavia.
In Kamarang, some 78 farms and 15 houses are inundated while in Kako, 12 houses and 171 farms are affected.
The Regional Chair noted that the water levels in these villages fluctuate depending on the intensity of the rainfall in any given day.
In a brief interview with INews, the Regional Chairman noted that this natural disaster is the worst to hit the region in recent times.
“We are still under the cuff, we are still facing on the most dreadful situations our region has ever faced and we recognize that villages like Paruima, Kamarang and Quebanang are still under tremendous strain because of the high levels of water,” he noted.
“We are working fiercely to bring relief in the form of food hampers in collaboration with the CDC. We recognize the people’s pain, we recognize their struggles that they are going through,” the Regional Chair expressed.
“We are working with the best intentions at heart and we are hoping that the people of the Middle [Mazaruni] and the Upper Mazaruni recognize that even though in Bartica Central we are not experiencing that, the region in collaboration with the CDC will be visiting in those areas as often as possible to help and to bring some sort of relief in the form of hampers and cleaning supplies,” he added.
The Regional Chair revealed that on Thursday last, hundreds of relief hampers were distributed to affected residents. These include 285 food hampers, 417 cleaning hampers, 258 bottles of bleach, 100 mosquito nets, and 192 bottles of disinfectants.
Additionally, the Government is preparing some 600 food and cleaning hampers to be distributed to Region Seven communities severely affected by flood.
“We expect the water to reduce this week but for certain areas, we are still seeing certain levels of inundation and we wish that would change, and we are hoping with God’s grace that the water level would reduce in those areas,” the Regional Chairman expressed.
He noted that the flooding is threatening the economic viability of many villages.
“Especially for the economic activities, we understand that its affecting lots of farms especially in Quebanang, Kamarang, in Paruima, lots of farms have been affected and NAREI has done an excellent job in tabulating some of the damages that has been done and we know that in collaboration with the Government we will able to provide some type of relief to those persons that have been affected.”
He explained that the region’s “biggest concern” is that villages in both the Upper and Lower Mazaruni district continue to report “economic devastation to their livelihood” as flood waters either continue to rise or remain stagnant.
