Sewage 'tsunami' kills 5

Associated Press by way of the Winnipeg Sun ^ | 28MAR07 | Associated Press

[familyop]

UMM NASER, Gaza Strip -- A huge sewage reservoir in the northern Gaza Strip collapsed Tuesday, killing five people in a frothing cascade of waste and mud that swamped a village and highlighted the desperate need to upgrade Gaza's overburdened infrastructure.

Rescue crews and Hamas gunmen rushed to the area to search for people feared buried under the sewage and mud. Dressed in wetsuits, they paddled boats through the layer of foam floating on the green and brown rivers of waste. Others waded up to their hips into the sewage.

The noxious smell of waste and dead animals hung in the air. Ziad Abu Farya, head of the village council, described the scene as "our tsunami."

'IT'S A DISASTER'

"We lost everything. Everything was covered by the flood. It's a disaster," said Amina Afif, 65, whose shack was destroyed.

The wave killed two women in their 70s, two toddlers and a teenage girl and injured 35 other people, hospital officials said. More than 200 homes were destroyed, health officials said. The Gaza City mayor blamed the collapse on local people digging dirt from the structure and selling it to building contractors.

A local Palestinian official blamed the disaster on shoddy infrastructure, and UN officials said they had been warning of a catastrophe since a 2004 UN report warned that the sewage facility was at maximum capacity and flooding was inevitable unless a new waste treatment plant was constructed.

[Dosa26]

They can throw stones but no one knows which way an apple falls. Brilliant!

[mikeus_maximus]

Pretty much a metaphor for the whole of Muslem society...

[Centurion2000]

KAOS had the nude bomb .....
The Palies got the turd bomb.

[libstripper]

What do they expect when their last technological breakthrough was putting a handle on a shovel?

You racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic pig! It was NOT!! Their greatest invention was the juvenile bomb vest for ages 4 and up. Take that!

[Buck W.]

Mohammed's second coming.

[chadwimc]

Probably, most of the mooselimbs live in such conditions every day...

[Tribune7]

Prayer bump

[bk1000]

"Sounds like a real sh*tstorm."

Another FReeper dubbed it a poo-nami.

[CholeraJoe]

It would have been pointless for AP to report that 5 able-bodied men were killed by sewage and blame it on Israel. I'm very surprised that they didn't throw in some floppy-eared bunnies and puppies ripped from their mothers' teats by the torrent.

[Hegemony Cricket]

Where's a Rachel Corrie when ya need one, eh?

[cricket]

Victim a 'five-count' now. . .not that we will ever know the truth of the matter here. Was this even reported by MSM/network>?

Leadership matters as does the philosohy that guides it. . .perhaps, 'nature' in their faces, nostrils. ..et al; there might come a change of heart. If for even a few. . .

[Alouette]

And you thought "let them drown in their own s#&t" was just a figure of speech.

[No Truce With Kings]

Reminds me of a story.

A Palestinian leader woke up one morning to discover that his skin color had gone dead white from a point just above his eyebrows to the top of his head. He tried doing everything to fix the problem -- first by himself then consulting with Palestinian doctors, next leaving to Saudi Arabia and having doctors there examine him. Without result. Finally he sees Muslim, Christian, and even Christian doctors in Europe, both Americas, and India. No joy.

Finally another Palestinian leader quietly takes him aside, and recommends a Jewish doctor. Desperate, the Palestinian leader disguises himself and goes to the Jewish doctor.

No sooner does the doctor see the Palestinian leader than he starts beaming. "This is simple. I'll have you fixed up in a few minutes." The doctor departs the room, and soon returns with a quart beaker filled with a thick brown liquid. It stinks.

The Palestinian leader looks at it and sniffs suspiciously. "This smells like excrement. What is it?"

"Just drink it," says the Jewish doctor. "It will fix you. If it doesn't bomb my office, bomb my home."

The Palestinian leader thinks -- he is right, I can. So he downs the contents of the beaker -- which tastes every bit as foul as it looks. The doctor holds up a mirror. The Palestinian's head has returned to its normal color.

"That's marvelous," says the Palestinian leader.

"It was nothing," say the doctor." You were just a quart low."

[SampleMan]

Pretty much a metaphor for the whole of Muslem society...

And I thought it was the Pali suicide bomber than got mugged by two other Palis on his way to a bombing, yelling ensued, and he self-detonated giving all three Fast-pass tickets to hell.

[Alouette]

Good one! I heard it told about Arafat.

[mutantcoil]

For some reason I think of Bob Saget, in Dumb and Dumberer, when he found the mess in his bathroom.

[dblshot]

Sounds like New Orleans and levees that were never repaired.

[Safetgiver]

Stole it from the Tamil Tigers. As far as age, they can't count any higher than five, so....

[Farmer Dean]

I think we're all cruisin'for a fatwah here.

[upchuck]

Yesterday's report on this said that the money for fixing it had long been there, they were just waiting for the violence to die down.

They prolly copied that protocol from New Orleans.