Sewage floods Belfast streets

Raw sewage flooded the streets today when sewers were unable to cope with heavy rain.

There was fury in the Lower Ormeau area of south Belfast, which government ministers had promised would not be hit again after remedial work was carried out after homes were flooded with sewage in 2005.

This time homes escaped, but the roads and pavements were covered with untreated sewage in the Lower Ormeau Road, River Terrance, Cook Street, Cook Place and Shrewsbury Avenue.

South Belfast Sinn Féin Assembly member Alex Maskey said he was absolutely disgusted after the streets were flooded.

He said: “Despite repeated assurances that there had been improvements in the sewage infrastructure we have yet again seen raw sewage flood onto the streets of this part of south Belfast.

“There were forecasts of heavy rains this weekend yet it appears that there has been a breakdown in whatever pre-emptive measures were supposed to have been put in place to avoid raw sewage flooding the area.”

The water service has some serious questions to answer, he said, questioning whether they had put in place appropriate measures to avoid such flooding, given that heavy rain was forecast.

He asked whether there had been another breakdown in pumping equipment.

Mr Maskey said: “There is widespread anger in the area and I believe that people living here are being treated with utter contempt.”

In a brief statement, Northern Ireland Water did not express regret or offer their apologies to the local residents.

It said they had been alerted to “out of sewer flooding” in the Lower Ormeau and they immediately attended the scene to assess the situation.

“It was found that the pumping station was operating normally and that the situation was as a result of extensive rain. The flooding is on roads only and no houses have been affected,” the statement said.

It added that the situation was under control and a clean-up operation had been mounted – six members of staff and two contract squads would have the clean up completed in two hours, they said.