Hurricane Maria: Thousands evacuated as Puerto Rican dam starts to fail
Updated
Puerto Rican officials have rushed to evacuate tens of thousands of people who are downstream of a dam which is failing in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Key points:
- Authorities are trying to evacuate 70,000 people
- Dam was built in about 1928, it holds back manmade lake covering about 5 square kilometres
- At least 27 people were killed in the Caribbean as a result of Hurricane Maria
Nearly 40 centimetres of rain has fallen on the mountains surrounding the Guajataca Dam since the Category 4 storm crossed the island, swelling the reservoir behind it.
Authorities are now trying to evacuate 70,000 people who live downstream, with buses sent to move people away.
The dam was built in about 1928 and holds back a manmade lake covering about five square kilometres.
An engineer inspecting the dam initially reported a "contained breach", but officials quickly realised it was a crack that could be the first sign of a total failure.
"There's no clue as to how long or how this can evolve," said Anthony Reynes, a meteorologist with the US National Weather Service.
"We really don't know how long it would take for this failure to become a full break of the dam."
Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello told reporters in the capital, "We haven't seen the extent of the damage."
Government spokesman Carlos Bermudez said that officials still had not had communication with 40 of the 78 municipalities on the island, days after Maria toppled power lines and sent floodwaters cascading through city streets.
That is because 1,360 of the island's 1,600 mobile phone towers had been downed, and 85 per cent of above-ground and underground phone and internet cables had been knocked out. Power had also been cut across the territory which has 3.4 million residents.
As a result, the situation may be worse than officials know.
The Pentagon said it was impossible to say when communication and power would be restored, but that mobile communication systems were being flown in.
The death toll in Puerto Rico was raised to 10 on Saturday evening (local time), including two police officers who drowned in floodwaters in the western town of Aguada.
The number of deaths is expected to climb as officials from remote towns continue to check in with officials in San Juan.
At least 27 lives in all were lost around the Caribbean as a result of the hurricane, including at least 15 on hard-hit Dominica. Haiti reported three deaths; Guadeloupe, two; and the Dominican Republic, one.
AP/ABC
Topics: storm-disaster, puerto-rico
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