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Classes have been cancelled for today and tomorrow at Orange Walk's biggest primary school, La Inmaculada.  

Early this morning, the Ministry of Education sent out a release confirming the cancellation.  The release states, quote, "the foul smell coming from the New River has been causing both teachers and students to become ill it is the hope that the situation, with continued intervention from the Department of Environment, will be improved and classes can resume on Monday. If, however, the situation remains the same, the Ministry with the Catholic Management will provide an alternate location for classes to resume on Monday."  End quote.

Of course, moving over a thousand students to a temporary location is fraught with complications, but as the area representative said today - it's a matter of urgency - and he supports the Ministry's decision:..

Hon. John Briceno - OW Central Area Rep.
"I am happy that the Ministry of Education took decisive action yesterday to say we need to close down La Immaculada school because of the smell is affecting the children. So I'm happy that was done. I'm glad now that the entire government has fully realized the extent of the crisis that we have and we need to work together. There are certain things that politics should not get involved and this is one of them and we find - if they can't alleviate the issue with the river quickly, then we need to find where we are going to put these children from La Immaculada because they need to be in school ASAP."