Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Wor­ship at the St Pe­ter's Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Church in Vista­bel­la has been can­celled in­def­i­nite­ly af­ter heavy rains caused a re­tain­ing wall to col­lapse, spilling mounds of mud and de­bris in­to the prayer room. The wor­ship hall was al­so in dan­ger of col­lapse. rus­trat­ed church mem­bers Gre­go­ry Mc Ewen and Den­nis Marchan went to the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion yes­ter­day seek­ing ur­gent help. How­ev­er, Mc Ewen said none of the city en­gi­neers or tech­ni­cal of­fi­cers were avail­able.

"We were told we would have to wait un­til Mon­day to get as­sis­tance, so we are pray­ing that the rest of the church does not cave in," Mc Ewen ex­plained.

The wall fell on Fri­day night af­ter four days of heavy rain­fall. When the care­tak­ers ar­rived yes­ter­day morn­ing, they saw mud flow­ing in­to the church from the bro­ken wall. Mc Ewen ex­plained that the beams were al­ready show­ing signs of weak­ness. Of­fi­cers of the Mon Re­pos Fire head­quar­ters vis­it­ed the scene and cor­doned off the church at Lam­bie Street, Vista­bel­la. They ad­vised the dio­cese to sus­pend all ac­tiv­i­ties in the church un­til fur­ther no­tice.

Head of the church Bish­op Leon John, who is in To­ba­go at­tend­ing a meet­ing, said the church was built in 1967. He said the church had a mem­ber­ship of over 100."I have not yet seen the dam­age, but I have spo­ken to se­nior mem­bers of the Arch­dio­cese and we will work to­geth­er to see what could be done about this prob­lem," John said.When the Guardian vis­it­ed, the re­tain­ing wall was lean­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly on­to the church and a chunk of the wall had crum­bled.

Clean­er Shirley Smith said they were dis­heart­ened."This church is an icon in San Fer­nan­do and what hap­pened is re­al­ly sad," she said, as she tried sweep­ing away de­bris.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist can con­tact Bish­op John at 766-4848.