Palestinians seek shelter after deadly sewage flood

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2007

UMM AL-NASR (AFP) — Palestinians made homeless when a Gaza village was destroyed by a deadly flood of raw sewage sheltered in makeshift camps on Wednesday as local residents searched stinking debris for more bodies.

Three women, one more than 70 years old, and two boys aged one and two died when the earthen walls of a cesspool collapsed on Tuesday in the northern Gaza village of Umm al-Nasr.

Around 250 mostly ramshackle houses were destroyed and 1,500 people displaced by the fetid deluge, according to the UN refugee agency.

"We have set up a temporary camp on an elevated plateau outside the village for fear of further collapses," said Ziad Abu Thabet, mayor of the Bedouin farming community.

The ruptured cesspool, which sits 150 metres from the...