RAPAPORT... As mining for diamonds and gold in Guyana continues in a rather disorganized fashion, the local press now reports dozens of small-scale miners inadvertently sliced open pipes supplying a remote village with fresh water. The miners were reported to have dug up a roadway, and the water pipes, in their pursuit of minerals.

Thousands of residents in a remote jungle area were without water for a third day as government workers attempted to repair the water pipes, but workers could not estimate when water supplies would be restored to some 15,000 residents. The Guyana public works minister Robeson Benn said that "mining of roadways" would not be permitted.