Over 200 households affected after Little Diamond dam breaks

Apr 27, 2021 News

One of the affected residents whose home was severely flooded yesterday.

BK workers on site rebuilding a new dam.

Kaieteur News – Over 200 Little Diamond, East Bank of Demerara, households were affected by severe flooding after a portion of the river defence dam broke during high tide yesterday morning.
Kaieteur News was told that at the Little Diamond koker site, the firm, BK International Inc., is constructing an alternative concrete sluice. It was revealed that the project has been ongoing since 2017.
According to a Civil Defence Commission (CDC) statement, since Sunday the area of Little Diamond and the Little Diamond Squatting Area had been experiencing flooding in some parts due to a breach at the nearby dam. However, the water had receded but around 04:00 hrs. yesterday there was a report of another breach. This time the water was much more.
Speaking with this media house about the situation, the Chairman of the Herstelling/Little Diamond Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), Mr. Punit Jaigopaul, explained that this is the third time something like this has happened. The only difference, he said, is that “this time it is much worse.” He recalled that “on Old Year’s Day and New Year’s Day morning the area was flooded because of a breach at the dam.”
He explained that “the water is over two feet high and have affected over 200 households causing severe damage to their property, household appliances and livestock.” According to Jaigopaul too, “this breach is as a result of the negligence caused by the contractor and the workers on the ground who failed to assess the many reports about the work being done to the dam.” He noted that the damage to the dam was caused by the contractor’s heavy machinery.

The severity of yesterday’s flooding at Little Diamond.

The aftermath of the flooding yesterday.

On many occasions, the Chairman said he and his team has had many discussions with the company’s engineers about the situation but since then they got no satisfaction. The NDC Chairman said “from since then their work is like little to nothing; when the month comes they do an hour work and they gone.”
On Sunday when the area was experiencing flooding, the Chairman noted that “if the workers had stayed on longer on the site to get more work done on the dam, this current situation would have been avoided.”
When Kaieteur News made contact with the BK International Inc. yesterday, the Chief Engineer, Mr. Ganesh Sawh, while not accepting blame for the flooding, noted that the dam was breached as a result of the pressure of the water. He said too that works are currently being done to seal the dam.
Meanwhile, the NDC and the CDC are working together to assess the situation and have since distributed over 100 cleaning and food hampers to the affected residents.

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