News From Our Region
Jamaica Government may seekinternational flood aid
The Jamaica government said that it mayhave to seek more international aid to help pay for the damageleft by Tropical Storm Lili, whose destructive thumping of Jamaicacame four months after unseasonal rains wreaked havoc across theisland, according to the Jamaica Observer.
The newspaper said Prime Minister P J Pattersonsignalled the likely new trek to institutions like the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB)after chairing a meeting of the National Disaster Committee (NDC)to review the damage left by Lili that pummelled Jamaica overthe weekend and into Monday.
Patterson told reporters that it was stilltoo early to fully quantify the cost of the impact of the stormon Jamaica, but said: "There may be need for seeking externalassistance or asking for some adjustments to finance assistancethat was already made available or committed as a result of theMay/June floods."
The rains in May and June left more thanJ$1 billion worth of damage to infrastructure and agricultureand the IDB quickly approved a US$20 million rehabilitation packagefor the island. The CDB also approved a US$5 million loan.
While Lili, which moved out of Jamaica'srange on Monday, did not give the island the prolonged dousingof the earlier weather system, its rains fell onto an alreadydrenched and saturated earth, making it more susceptible to landslidesand floods.
The eastern parish of St Thomas, where threepersons died, and St Andrew in the southeast were particularlyhard hit, by Lili.
Patterson inspected the damage from aboarda Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) helicopter: the collapsed bridges,broken roads, flattened crops, dead livestock, marooned communitiesand buried homes.
"All rivers are virtually in spateand anywhere that the water can find passage to lower ground ithas done so, leaving a lot of damage and destruction," saidPatterson after his aerial tour.
Up to Monday, 1,322 persons were in 23 sheltersacross the island, 147 roads reported to be either blocked orseriously affected by landslides and 30 water systems were inoperable.
Patterson said that the government would"respond to the priority requirements", using its ownresources, but indicated that may not be enough to deal with thewider problem.
The Ministry of Labour and Social Securitywas mandated at yesterday's meeting of the NDC to co-ordinatethe assessment of the damage and phased recovery programme. Thelabour and social security minister, Dean Peart, is to meet tomorrowwith finance minister, Omar Davies, to determine the budgetaryrequirements for the short-term rehabilitation.
The first phase, which will begin immediately,includes the re-establishing of road access, the distributionof relief supplies and potable water as well as vector controland social welfare. Food, bedding and other supplies will be airliftedto communities that are either isolated or cut off, Peart saidin a statement last night.
In addition, the National Works Agency hasbeen instructed to erect a Bailey Bridge by next Tuesday to temporarilyreconnect Kingston and St Thomas via the Yallahs Fording, wheremore than 100 feet of the bridge was washed away by Lili's rains.
The JDF's engineering section will helpwith the Yallahs project.
Today, Peart is heading for St Elizabeth,while housing and water minister, Donald Buchanan will travelto Clarendon and St Catherine to see firsthand, some of the damages.Their information, supported by the findings of their experts,will likely feed into tomorrow's meeting between Peart and Davies.
Patterson underlined the national natureof the catastrophe and stressed that rehabilitation had to "focuson the needs of the nation as a whole", without partisandistinction.
"The bad weather made no distinctionbased on political community," he said. "It affectedpeople of different political stripes. Naturally, this is a periodof political exuberance but we have placed this priority effortas a government on the relief operations."
Added Patterson: "As prime ministerof Jamaica, I accept the responsibility to lead the national effortat this time in the interests of the nation as a whole... andthose instructions have been repeated to my ministers today andto all the officials no matter in what agency they represent."