Iraqi woman dies in sinkhole collapse

A rescuer works to retrieve the doomed car.

Amani Sami al-Ghanim, 18, of Iraq died Saturday at 12:30 in the afternoon in a horrific taxi crash triggered by the collapse of a sinkhole on Haddah Street in Sana’a.  The driver of the taxi suffered minor injuries and was rescued by several people.  The sudden appearance of the sinkhole, over a septic tank originally used to store sewage, was near the Shumaila Hari market on Haddah Street in Sana’a.

The girl who died in the accident is from Iraq, and is not a resident of Yemen. Al-Ghanim had come to Yemen to spend a short vacation and visit her sisters living in Sana’a, said Mohammed Yahya al-Akwa’a, director of security in the al-Wahada district in the capital. Al-Akwa’a said that the preliminary investigations have revealed that the septic hole was dug before public sanitation systems were extended into the district 15 years ago, in order to accommodate the sewage output of the al-Eman Mosque. “The mouth of the sinkhole is an area of five square meters, and it has a depth of 15 meters,” he said.

 “The septic hole was not used after installation of the public sanitation systems network in the area,” he said. Security sources are still investigating the accident to determine the causes of the collapse of the road surface, and to determine who is responsible for the negligence of burying the septic hole after the installation of the public sanitation network, al-Akwa’a said.  Khalifa al-Ma’rashi, the driver of the taxi, told the Yemen Observer that he had picked up the woman from the front of the Shumailah Hari market. When he moved towards Haddah Street, to his surprise the car fell down an enormous hole. 

“I was unconscious for several minutes, and when I regained consciousness, I found the car windshield was destroyed, and I looked at the women behind me, who was also unconscious,” he said.  Al-Ma’rashi also said that he tried to wake the woman up, but he could not because the fall was so terrible. “The people who gathered over the sinkhole to save us threw ropes, and I was saved, thanks to Allah, then thanks to the people,” he said.

“The woman could not be saved because she was in the back seat, where the water of the sinkhole rose to cover her, and she died before the civil defense rescue team could remove her from the car, after about an hour of collaboration between some citizens and traffic policemen.”  The owner of Spacetel Center for Communications, who declined to give his name, said that he was in his shop when to his surprise he heard a noise like a bomb or a terrible auto accident.  “The huge amount of dust extended around the inside of the shop, and I went to look to see what had happened. I was shocked when I saw a huge hole in the middle of the street, and a taxi sunk inside of it. I saw a crowd people who gathered to look the accident and get the driver out.” 

Thousands of potentially lethal holes like this one lurk under the streets of Sana’a.

“The Ministry of Works and Sanitation must be prosecuted, because it neglects to properly bury these septic holes and because incidents like this have happened several times, until a person is afraid to walk on the street,” said Ahmed Ali al-Mashwali, witness.      General Director of the Local Water and Sanitation Corporation in the capital, Eng. Ibrahim al-Mahdi blamed public works for the sinkhole collapse in the capital that killed one woman and injured the driver.

“My corporation does not grant permits for drilling, and the works office is responsible for the draining of such holes. The hole was far from a sewer drainage and digging sewers in the streets is a clear violation of laws,” he said.  Al-Mahdi said that there are more than 200,000 sewer lines under city streets in the capital alone, and that his organization has filled in more than 10,000 of them during the past three years.  “The place where the accident occurred, I passed over it with my family dozens of times, without knowing that there are old sewer holes there,” the Minister of State, Sana’a Mayor Dr. Yahya al-Shuaibi, said after the accident to almotamar.net.  

Al-Shuaibi also said that more than 10,000 holes have been plugged during the past three years, and the other potential sinks remain unidentified because of the absence of maps to illustrate their locations.   A new law to prevent the issue of permits to establish new septic tanks, especially in the main streets of the capital, was approved Monday in a meeting between Sana’a Mayor Yahya al-Shuaibi and the leaders of the Water Corporation and the Office of the Public Works. Any new septic tanks should be established only under private homes and gardens, the new law holds. 
The leaders also discussed how to find all of the old septic holes under the city, before they kill more people.  

“The most important outcome of the meeting was to emphasize the need to find a map showing the locations of underground holes in the capital,” al-Shuaibi said.  He also said that meeting participants agreed to the proposals contained in the letter from the Local Water and Sanitation Corporation on the prevention of permits for septic holes in the main streets.  Also, it agreed that better sewage storage systems must be designed by the Office of Public Works.   The decision to prevent any licenses to establish septic holes, especially in the main streets of the capital, came two days after the sinkhole collapsed in Haddah Street on Saturday. 

Previously, two people, including a child, were killed and another child was injured in March 2006, due to an explosion in one of the sinkholes that occurred in Bani al-Harith in the capital. Also, in the same month, four citizens were killed and others were injured during the drilling of a septic tank for a house in the Taiz governorate.   

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