Aid organizations are concerned about a health hazard after a deadly sewage flood swept through a village in Gaza on Tuesday.
Five people were killed and 17 injured after the wall of a cesspool collapsed near a village in northern Gaza. Sewage water flooded Um A-Na’sir, a village in northern Gaza.
Even if the buildings are structurally sound, there remains a health hazard in the area.
Almost all the people affected by the flood were registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA).
“Areas that are habitable structurally have to be disinfected,” said John Ging, UNRWA’s director of operation in Gaza.
Engineers are currently surveying the area to check what is recoverable.
“Our immediate concern is to make sure the population is protected,” Ging said.
Some 1,500 people fled their homes to escape what witnesses described as a mini-tsunami. The houses of 100 families were rendered uninhabitable.
UNRWA has set up a temporary shelter on elevated ground near the affected area and is catering for the basic needs of those who have been displaced.
It will be weeks, if not months before the inhabitants of Um A-Na’sir will be able to go back to their houses, Ging estimated.