There are now un­con­firmed re­ports of sev­er­al deaths due to flood­ing in the Greenville, La Hor­quet­ta com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dents who said they have been di­rect­ly in­volved in some of the res­cue op­er­a­tions in the com­mu­ni­ty, claim they have been told that at least three to 16 peo­ple may have met their un­time­ly deaths in the flood wa­ters, which rose to as much as 12 feet in some ar­eas of the com­mu­ni­ty overnight.

One woman said they fear a 60-year-old wheel­chair-bound woman, who is still un­ac­count­ed for, may be one of the vic­tims. How­ev­er, it is al­so pos­si­ble that she may have been res­cued and tak­en to one of the shel­ters or­gan­ised for vic­tims.

An­oth­er woman who said she had just been res­cued, said some of the vic­tims were Good Samar­i­tans who were seek­ing to help oth­ers when they too end­ed up be­ing swept away by flood wa­ters.

Po­lice con­firmed they have been told of drown­ing deaths but said they have been un­able to con­firm them be­cause res­cue teams are still yet to ac­cess some of the hard­est hit ar­eas and ca­su­al­ties may not be dis­cov­ered un­til the flood wa­ters re­cede in some cas­es.

A Greenville resident who managed to salvage some of his belongings.

Anna Lisa Paul

Wa­ter is still as high as five feet in some ar­eas of the Tumpuna Road com­mu­ni­ty.

Hun­dreds have been fer­ried out by Good Samar­i­tans but hun­dreds more are still trapped on their rooftops or are sim­ply out in the el­e­ments since those who lived on the ground floors of apart­ment build­ings sim­ply did not have high­er ground to go to.

Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion work­ers have joined mem­bers of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces still in­volved in re­lief and res­cue ef­forts. How­ev­er, there is anger from some res­i­dents who say state agen­cies’ re­sponse was lethar­gic and still too slow in com­ing.

More re­sources have been ar­riv­ing steadi­ly since 10 am and wa­ter is be­ing dis­trib­uted to res­i­dents. Some res­i­dents have al­so been sal­vaging as many of their be­long­ings as they can and leav­ing the area and many of them want to be re­lo­cat­ed as soon as pos­si­ble.

The army and po­lice have been res­cu­ing peo­ple us­ing in­flat­able life rafts, but bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion work­ers are call­ing for pirogues to be brought in to help as the wa­ters are still very deep in some places. But trapped res­i­dents are al­so be­com­ing ag­i­tat­ed as clouds are be­gin­ning to hov­er over­head again, pos­si­bly sig­nalling more rain to come.

Guardian Me­dia will bring up­dates on this sit­u­a­tion as more news comes in.