Accidents & Disasters

As Belize continues to experience heavy rains due to the passing of Tropical Depression Eta, many residents have been experiencing flooding. It is anticipated that due to the flooding in some areas, drinking water sources may have become contaminated leaving it unsafe to drink and requiring treatment.

A fire on the ground floor of a three-story wooden building was quickly contained by the San Pedro Fire Department (SPFD) on Friday, October 16th in the San Juan Area. No one was injured in the blaze, but everything inside the apartment was destroyed. The Officer in Charge at SPFD, Gladstone Bucknor, stated that they responded to the fire at 11:35AM, and extinguished the blaze ten minutes after. He said that because the building has three floors and the fire was on the ground level, there was a risk the building could collapse. Another concern was the risk of fire spreading to other homes nearby, causing a major inferno.

The foreign military vessel apparently experienced mechanical failure as they were exiting a channel to the open sea while bound north to Mexico. They did not run aground on the reef as rumored.

As a part of BEL’s Hurricane Preparedness Plan, we are monitoring the weather and taking all necessary measures to maintain continuous, safe and reliable service to customers, where possible. The Company is mobilizing its people, resources and equipment to ensure that we are prepared to assess and recover from any impacts of the approaching storm.

The UNDP programme, “Enabling Gender-Responsive Disaster Recovery, Climate and Environmental Resilience in the Caribbean” (EnGenDER) has been working with implementing partners, stakeholders and donors over the last year to strengthen disaster risk management systems for 9 Caribbean countries and build resilience to the effects of climate change. This work is happening at a variety of levels, from improving central government’s ability build strategies for inclusive approaches to policy making to build resilience; to strengthening regional systems for planning and recovery from natural disasters; to community level interventions to ensure the vulnerable have what they need to so that that adaptation and mitigation actions in key livelihood sectors, such as agriculture, consider vulnerable persons.

Barrington Moss, 50, was found drowned off the west coast of Caye Caulker. Originally from Belize City, Moss was a security guard living in San Pedro Town.

Early morning accident involving an apparently intoxicated police officer goes unconfirmed by local police.

CCRIF SPC made a payout of US$203,136 to the Government of Belize on its Excess Rainfall parametric insurance policy following three days of heavy rains during Tropical Storms Amanda and Cristobal. Amanda was a tropical cyclone that originated in the Pacific Ocean and brought rains that affected Belize on 30 May and then weakened. However, the remnants of Amanda then reorganized to form Tropical Storm Cristobal in the Gulf of Mexico – thus becoming a cross-over cyclone from the Pacific to the Atlantic.