10 killed as Syrian dam bursts

Zeyzoun Dam floods three nearby towns

DAMASCUS, Syria -- Up to 10 people have died after a dam burst open and flooded three villages in northern Syria, reports have said.

An estimated 100 homes were covered in muddy water across an area of 60 square kilometres of low-lying agricultural land, destroying crops and animal herds.

The Ministry of Irrigation has set up an emergency committee to coordinate rescue efforts and to determine what caused the collapse, SANA, the official Syrian news agency said.

President Bashar al-Assad has ordered 50,000 Syrian pounds (about $1,000) in aid for each of the victims, SANA added.

The number of fatalities was initially predicted to have been low because the villages had been evacuated, but the numbers have been rising on Wednesday, a day after the incident, Reuters news agency reported.

People living near the village of Zeyzoun on the Orontes River in northern Syria, said they had complained about cracks in the dam, which was built in 1996 and held 71 million cubic metres of water, but nothing had been done.

"They made this dam to water all the crops, and wound up killing us with it," an elderly woman told Reuters news agency, surveying the wreckage of her house in Zeyzoun.

Damage caused by the flood

In the nearby village of Ziara, a little more than a mile from the dam, residents described a sudden deluge of water flooding homes and farmland shortly after 2 p.m. on Tuesday.

"When the water started coming, I took my children and wife and ran into the mountains," Yasser Ibrahim, a 33-year-old farmer told The Associated Press.

The third village to be affected was Qastoun.