At the beginning of today's House Meeting, Prime Minister Briceno gave a report to the parliament of all the flash flood damage that was caused countrywide when Hurricane Julia's outer bands dumped torrents of rain on Belize a little over a week ago.
According to the PM, the preliminary estimates of the damage to the country's physical infrastructure alone is around 3 million:
Hon. John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Ofcourse as a government we are providing all the assistance in these communities to ensure the safety of life and property. At last week's Tuesday cabinet meeting, the cabinet reported that damage assessment and needs analysis by the relevant authorities and we have already approve disbursements through the contingency fund, the budget contingency fund. We have 5 million dollars that we can draw down for emergencies to be able to help address the immediate needs of those affected and we expect that at the next house meeting then we can come back and give the proper accounting as to what these funds were use and that we can approve those expenditures and whatever else will be needed. The Ministry of Infrastructure has also activated teams in the affected areas and the preliminary damage assessment is already over 3 million dollars."
"Let me assure everyone that our administration will do all that is necessary to assist those affected by this storm. Together we will get our crops replanted and will fix the broken roof tops, our damage infrastructure will be repaired."
"Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we are already seeking our international partners for assistance. Also we will continue to stress that the international community, especially the developed countries must recognize the importance of coming up with a mechanism to address what we call "loss and damage" because of climate change as a key component for us to adapting for us as I mentioned climate change. In the meantime, though all of us here at home must not let our guards down. The hurricane season is not over."
The PM said total public and private sector damages could be in the tens of millions.
