GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) – Guyana’s government deployed soldiers to protect flood control gates and reservoirs yesterday after saboteurs set fire to drainage systems in coastal areas threatened by recent flooding, an official said.

The damage to two flood control sluices early yesterday triggered flooding in two eastern villages that had been spared by rising water caused by weeks of heavy rain, Presidential spokesman Robert Persaud said.

Persaud linked the acts to “apparent anger by residents in some villages about not yet getting flood relief from government”.

“The president has sent soldiers to these areas and anyone found guilty of damaging drainage and irrigation facilities would be charged,” he said.

On Friday, about 1,000 protesters blocked the lone highway linking the South American country’s east and west, accusing the government of failing to control devastating floods and not providing relief for their losses.

The protests erupted after emergency workers were forced to pump millions of gallons of water from a swollen reservoir to prevent a dam from collapsing. Hundreds of farmers will suffer another deluge with the reservoir release into an already overflowing Mahaica River.

President Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday promised to compensate residents in flood-hit areas and announced the opening of two more shelters in the eastern Berbice region.

Meanwhile, residents yesterday endured more rainfall, which forecasters predicted would last for days.

Since December, flooding has covered thousands of hectares in waist-deep water and displaced more than 5,000 people near the Mahaica River, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the capital, Georgetown.

More than 12,000 acres (4,900 hectares) of rice paddies and other crops were lost, the state-run news agency reported. About 5,000 cattle have died and authorities were battling to save another 35,000.

Persaud said the military has also been ordered to protect a dam used to store water for farmers.

A failure of the dam during the worst rains in a century flooded dozens of villages and parts of the capital last year, killing 35 people.