Water well erupts during drilling, blocks roadway with silt

Mar 04, 2009 News

Pandemonium broke out in Third Street, Grove, East Bank Demerara yesterday after a partly-completed well in a resident’s yard spewed a fountain of mud more than 40 feet into the air and blocked a nearby roadway with a mound of silt.

A bobcat clears the roadway after the eruption

Houses several meters away were also coated with mud. The yard in which the well was being drilled was inundated with several feet of muddy water.
So intense was the force that the concrete walls surrounding the premises began to crack.
The owner of the house was forced to smash holes into the walls of the fence to allow the sludge to escape.
The disaster occurred at around 10:30 hrs and the fountain only stopped gushing at around midday.
A contractor who was installing the well blamed gases in the earth.
The man, who declined to be identified, said that his seven-man crew had drilled some 120 feet into the earth when gases that were trapped below the surface sent mud spewing into the air.
The scene evoked memories of a gushing oil well.
The cost for installing the well was $3.2 M, the man said, while stating that the project would have to be aborted.
The contractor told reporters that he has been drilling wells for homeowners for about 25 years.
He said that most of these wells have been installed in the interior, and this is the first time that he has experienced a mishap of this magnitude.
Asked whether he received a permit to drill the well, the contractor claimed that he only needed permission if he was drilling further than 200 feet.
He conceded that no feasibility study was done prior to drilling.
The resident who was attempting to install the well in his yard declined to comment.
Guyana Water Inc. (GWI) Public Relations officer Rawle Aaron told Kaieteur News that the Hydrometerological Office is the entity that authorises the drilling of wells.
“Our presence on the scene was to ascertain that the water emerging from the well was not coming from any of our water mains.”
Aaron said that GWI personnel who visited the scene determined that GWI’s mains were not affected.