Hundreds living near ‘falling’ Puerto Rico dam evacuated

Mostpeople living near a crumbling dam in storm-battered Puerto Rico havebeen moved to safety, Governor Ricardo Rossello said yesterday as heurged the US Congress to fund an aid package to avert a humanitariancrisis after Hurricane Maria.Most of the Caribbean island, a USterritory with a population of 3.4mn, is still without electricity fivedays after Maria swept ashore with ferocious winds and torrential rains,the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico for nearly a century.Therehave been growing concerns for some 70,000 people who live in the rivervalley below the Guajataca Dam in the island’s northwest, where crackswere seen appearing on Friday in the 88-year-old earthen structure.Rossello said he was working on the assumption that the dam would collapse.“I’drather be wrong on that front than doing nothing and having that failand costing people lives,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Some ofthe dam has fallen apart and now we’re making sure that we can assess ifthe other part is going to fall down as well .... most of the people inthe near vicinity have evacuated.”It was unclear if the governorwas saying that most of the 70,000 valley inhabitants had left the area,or only the several hundred people living in the small towns closest tothe dam.About 320 people from those towns have moved to safety, according to local media.Thefear of a potentially catastrophic dam break added to the difficultiesfacing disaster relief authorities after Maria, which was the secondmajor hurricane to strike Caribbean this month and which killed at least29 people in the region.At least 10 of those who died were inPuerto Rico, including several people who drowned or were hit by flyingdebris, and three elderly sisters who died in a mudslide.Many structures on the island, including hospitals, remain badly damaged and flooded.Clean drinking water is hard to find in some areas.Very few planes have been able to land or take off from damaged airports.AfterMaria caused widespread flooding, the National Weather Service (NWS)warned of further flash floods in some western parts of the island onMonday as thunderstorms moved in.The hurricane hit at a time when Puerto Rico was already battling economic crisis.Rossellosaid yesterday that before the storms struck he had been embarking onan aggressive fiscal agenda that included more than $1.5bn in cuts.“Thisis a game changer,” the governor told CNN. “This is a completelydifferent set of circumstances. This needs to be taken intoconsideration otherwise there will be a humanitarian crisis.”InWashington, US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan said thatCongress was working with President Donald Trump’s administration tomake sure the necessary assistance reaches Puerto Rico.“Our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico remain in our prayers as we make sure they have what they need,” Ryan said in a statement.Mariacontinued to weaken and would likely be downgraded from a hurricane to atropical storm by tonight, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.Asof 11am ET (1500 GMT) yesterday, it was about 315 miles (505km)south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, heading slowly north,the NHC said.The storm was unlikely to hit the continental USdirectly, but a tropical storm warning was in effect for much of theNorth Carolina coast.Officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for visitors to Ocracoke Island in the Outer Banks.