KE­JAN HAYNES

Farm­ers of Nar­i­va Swamp say they've lost an­i­mals and their crops worth thou­sands of dol­lars in this week's floods. They won't be able to ful­ly count their los­es un­til flood sub­sides, al­low­ing them to vis­it their land and an­i­mals.

Yan­kee, man­ag­er of Co­cal Es­tate, told Guardian Me­dia that as of yes­ter­day (Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 23), two of his cows drowned.

He is yet to check to see if any more died.  Cur­rent­ly, Yan­kee is un­able to dri­ve through the flood wa­ters to get to the es­tate. He said the wa­ter lev­el mea­sured about four feet (4 ft).

With rain still falling and the tide ris­ing, Yan­kee fears the road will re­main cov­ered with wa­ter for days.

Flood wa­ters con­tin­ue to cov­er most parts of the Man­zanil­la/Ma­yaro Road, but where the flood­wa­ters have sub­sided, mas­sive cracks are seen on the road­way.

The road re­mains closed and po­lice of­fi­cers are post­ed to ad­vise mo­torists to turn around.

Taxi dri­vers and the trav­el­ling pub­lic—es­pe­cial­ly those com­ing from Ma­yaro and Guayagua­yare, as well as those go­ing to work in the south­east oil­fields—are call­ing on Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Sen­a­tor Ro­han Sinanan, to make every ef­fort to have the road re­paired and re-opened as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

Dri­vers, as well as pas­sen­gers, told Guardian Me­dia the al­ter­nate route takes about one to one and a half hours trav­el­ling through the rough roads to get from Rio Claro to San­gre Grande.

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port ear­ly this morn­ing proved fu­tile.