Development firm 7NG says it has agreed to help rebuild the sewage system of the sizeable Tonle Bassac commune apartment complex known as the “Building,” which residents say was badly damaged when the company forcefully evicted the adjacent Dey Krahorm community Jan 24.
The 300-meter-long Building complex on Sothearos Blvd is separated from the Dey Krahorm site by a 3-meter-tall brick wall that 7NG erected over the weekend.
7NG bulldozers severed a number of pipes that flowed down from the Bassac apartment building into a main sewage line, Building representative Sovanna Bun said Monday during an interview at his apartment, adding that about half of the 600 families living in the building now lack functioning toilets.
“When they bulldozed over here, everything was broken,” he said. “The smell is very bad,” he added.
Residents are now constantly tossing bags of feces out their windows and onto the bulldozed Dey Krahorm site, he said.
Sovanna Bun said residents now merely want 7NG to assist in rebuilding the sewage system.
Tonle Bassac commune chief Khat Narith said Tuesday by telephone that 7NG had agreed to pay for the materials, while the commune would pay for the labor costs, to install a new sewage pipe the length of the apartment building, because the old one is clogged with garbage.
“[Today] I will send the workers to dig the hole to set the new sewage [pipe],” he said.
7NG General Manager Chheang Bona confirmed by telephone Monday that the company had agreed to provide the materials for either a new or a repaired sewage system, but he did not know who would do the work or when work would begin.
“For the people that want to use the new drainage, they can connect the pipe from their house by themselves,” he said. “The company just provides the materials.”
But for now, Building resident Phan Sothea, 31, said her toilet is backed up. Outside her ground floor apartment, toilet water appears to be collecting in pools on the ground.
Phan Sothea said she sees many plastic bags flying above her head from apartments to the Dey Krahorm site.
“Everything is inside the bag,” she said Monday.
Standing outside his apartment, Sovanna Bun pointed to a blue pipe leading down the side of the building. When bulldozers broke the line to the underground drainage pipe and raw sewage starting flowing onto the ground outside his apartment, Sovanna Bun said, he plugged the pipe.
Most ground floor residents did the same, he said, which backed up the majority of residents’ toilets on the floors above. Fortunately for Sovanna Bun, his sister lives across the street.
