Tonight, many Belizeans are relaxed after Tropical Storm Sara did blow over "like wah lee breeze" - but for those in flood prone communities, the ordeal is just beginning as flood waters start to roll down.
Today, the Prime Minister made a damage assessment flyover of the Cayo district along with area representatives - and, in Cayo, he told us what he saw.
John Briceno, Prime Minister "I flew all the way up to the Chalillo dam all the way by caracol actually and went into the Belize river valley all the way by Maskall that area. We saw the Chalillo dam is overflowing lots of water more and more water is going to be coming down the Macal and onto San Ignacio Santa Elena and to the villages in these areas. Our hope is that it does not rain because if it doesn't then the waters are still running out so hopefully the flooding will not be as bad and it becomes serious when you have lots of rain and all of the water is coming down we have to take into account that we have waters coming in from Guatemala the concern about the waters coming in from Guatemala is that the lot of these villages most of these citizens are very very poor and they have their latrines right next to the river and there has been cases that once the Latrine gets full and the river is overflowing with water then you know the feces and everything comes into the river and that water is going to run into Belize into the Cayo district and some of our villagers get water from those, that's their water source so we have to be on the look out to ensure that no one gets cholera or gets sick from the water being contaminated so we are going to be having more and more water running down and we hope that it does not rain but here in the planes in Cayo where Santander where hundreds or acres of cane lands are under water lots of small farmers have lost their crop, the vegetables in Cayo central by La Gracia also by mile 7 that area we have a lot of our farmers that grow vegetables and their crops are under water so overall what we are seeing is a lot of infrastructural damage like what we are seeing here at this small bridge that connects to San Martin Primary school and agricultural crops that small farmers are losing we have to see how we can fix the infrastructure and also the infrastructure that can now hold the kind of water that is running down and to also work with our small farmers and see how we can help them."
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Tonight, many Belizeans are relaxed after Tropical Storm Sara did blow over "like wah lee breeze" - but for those in flood prone communities, the ordeal is just beginning as flood waters start to roll down.
"I flew all the way up to the Chalillo dam all the way by caracol actually and went into the Belize river valley all the way by Maskall that area. We saw the Chalillo dam is overflowing lots of water more and more water is going to be coming down the Macal and onto San Ignacio Santa Elena and to the villages in these areas. Our hope is that it does not rain because if it doesn't then the waters are still running out so hopefully the flooding will not be as bad and it becomes serious when you have lots of rain and all of the water is coming down we have to take into account that we have waters coming in from Guatemala the concern about the waters coming in from Guatemala is that the lot of these villages most of these citizens are very very poor and they have their latrines right next to the river and there has been cases that once the Latrine gets full and the river is overflowing with water then you know the feces and everything comes into the river and that water is going to run into Belize into the Cayo district and some of our villagers get water from those, that's their water source so we have to be on the look out to ensure that no one gets cholera or gets sick from the water being contaminated so we are going to be having more and more water running down and we hope that it does not rain but here in the planes in Cayo where Santander where hundreds or acres of cane lands are under water lots of small farmers have lost their crop, the vegetables in Cayo central by La Gracia also by mile 7 that area we have a lot of our farmers that grow vegetables and their crops are under water so overall what we are seeing is a lot of infrastructural damage like what we are seeing here at this small bridge that connects to San Martin Primary school and agricultural crops that small farmers are losing we have to see how we can fix the infrastructure and also the infrastructure that can now hold the kind of water that is running down and to also work with our small farmers and see how we can help them."