Sewage floods village, kills four in Gaza.

(From AFX Europe (Focus))

UMM AL NASR, Gaza Strip (AFX) - At least four Palestinians drowned as a wave of raw sewage flooded a village in the northern Gaza Strip today when a water treatment reservoir burst.

The deluge, triggered by the collapse of a septic system which aid organisations had long warned was dangerously overburdened, submerged dozens of homes in the Bedouin farming village of Umm al-Nasr beneath a cesspool of foul-smelling effluent.

Two women, one more than 70 years old, and two children aged one and two died in the flood. Fifteen people were injured and scores more are still missing, according to Palestinian medics.

Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters as rescuers used boats to help the victims.

"The situation is very bad," village mayor Ziad Abu Thabet said, comparing the disaster to a "tsunami." "Around 70 percent of the village houses were flooded by the waters," he said.

Palestinian television and radio opened their news broadcasts by also describing the disaster as a "sewage tsunami."