Woman dies as car sinks in gutter [Archives:2007/1050/Local News]
SANA'A, May 13 ) An Iraqi woman in her thirties died on Saturday when a car sank in a sewer in Hadda area, witnesses said to Yemen Times reporter. They added that the taxi was driving in a Hadda street with the victim on board, but it suddenly fell down in the sewer.
Yahya Mu'eedh, a telephone center operator, said that he witnessed the accident from his center as the car suddenly sank in the sewer. He added that waste and mud were dispersed to the center as the car fell down. He mentioned that the driver survived the accident as he went out through the car window but the woman, who was overwhelmed by the sewer water, could not get out because she was sitting on the back seat.
Eyewitnesses said that the rescue operation was very slow due to the lack of good equipment. Additionally, the rush hour traffic at the afternoon helped exacerbate the situation.
Owners of shops in the vicinity of the accident scene told that the woman appeared alive immediately after the car sank, but her life wasn't saved due to the lack of sophisticated equipment, coupled with the slow rescue operation which lasted for one hour.
The accident is not the first of its kind but there have been numerous similar accidents over the past few months. For instance, by the end of 2006, three people sank in a sewer in the Sixty St. in front of Al-Khatib Restaurant. One of them was drowned to death while the other two were rescued.
General Manager of the Water and Sanitation Corporation in the capital Eng. Ibrahim Al-Mahdi held the public work offices accountable for the tragic accident. He confirmed in a statement that his corporation doesn't grant people licenses to dig deep sewers in the streets, but citizens receive licenses from the public work offices.
According to Al-Mahdi, digging sewers in the main streets breaks the law. “There are two hundred thousand sewers in the capital city. The Water and Sanitation Corporation buried more than 10 thousand sewers over the past years.” he elaborated.
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