Relief in Netherlands as horses led from watery trap

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Relief in Netherlands as horses led from watery trap

Last Updated: Friday, November 3, 2006 | 11:03 AM ET

CBC News

In a drama that transfixed the Netherlands, four women on horseback led

about 100 horses to safety on Friday from a flood-washed temporary

islet where they were stranded for three days.

 

Nineteen horses had drowned or died of exposure since Tuesday night,

when a storm surge pushed sea water into an area outside the dikes of

Marrum, northeast of Amsterdam. The horses took refuge on a muddy mound

surrounded by water.

 

In the rescue, the women guided the herd through receding floodwaters

to higher ground about 600 metres away. All of the horses except one

followed without hesitation.

 

One woman fell into the water during the ride but remounted to finish

the job. The last horse, led back later, collapsed after reaching shore

and was being attended by veterinarians.

 

Horses stranded by flood waters huddle on a small piece of land in

Marrum, northeast of Amsterdam, on Thursday.

(Catrinus van der Veen, Leeuwarder Courant/Associated Press) The

horses' predicament riveted the country, where television and

newspapers carried dramatic photographs and footage of the horses

bunched together, their backs to the wind that whipped up small waves

around the island.

 

Veterinarians, firefighters and animal welfare officers brought the

horses hay and fresh water and emergency workers in boats managed to

ferry about 20 to safety on Wednesday.

 

The water was about a metre deep in most places, but depths reached two

metres where drainage channels crossed fields surrounding the knoll.

 

The Dutch army tried to rescue the animals Wednesday afternoon, but

called off the operation when water levels receded to less than a metre

in some places, grounding pontoon boats.

 

 

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances,

there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in

such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest

we become unwitting victims of the darkness.

William O. Douglas