Bombs away...
Thursday, June 10, 1999
Fecal Explosion Threatens City
EGUCIGALPA, Honduras--The Honduran capital faces possible violent explosions of fecal matter due to massive obstructions in its sewage system, officials said Wednesday.
"We are racing against time to unblock the pipes before winter comes and the pipes and manholes overflow or explode," said Humberto Puerto, manager of the National Aqueduct and Sewerage Network Service.
"There are tanks that are full of fecal matter and that could explode because of the gases being produced and the pressure of new fluids," he told reporters.
The sewerage network in Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, a city of more than 1 million people, has sustained severe cracks and mounting blockages caused by Hurricane Mitch, which devastated the impoverished Central American country in October 1998.
Fecal matter and urine have been running openly through city streets due to the blockages in underground pipelines.
Some 80 percent of Tegucigalpa's pipes are destroyed and 20 percent are blocked by earth, rubbish and sand, officials said.
Repairing and rebuilding the system would cost $80 million, Puerto said, adding that although the government does not have the funds, the danger of epidemics makes the project urgent. |
